Damsel
by shooting-stetsons
Summary: It's a Cinderella!AU
1. Prologue

Hello, everyone! I'm not much one for Author's notes but I figure I ought to leave one in this case. This story started out intending to be a brief fill for a prompt on the sherlockbbc kinkmeme, but wound up into quite the mammoth of a project, not only due to my massive love for Sally/Lestrade or my penchant for AUs, but also because I tend to use writing as an escape mechanism, and I'm not only dealing with finals week but a very personal death in the family. Writing this has helped greatly to work my way through hardships, and I'm very thankful for the original poster of the prompt that inspired all this. I've really enjoyed writing this up, and do certainly hope that you all enjoy reading it just as much.

Before you read, I would like to leave a great heaping pile of thanks to my dear friend and beta reader **burninganchors**, whose work you should all go check out post-haste!

thank you all so much for your words of kindness and support!

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><p>The twenty-ninth of June, 1986, was one of the mildest and most pleasant days London had seen all the year long. The sun peeked cheerfully out from between fluffy white clouds, kissing the skin and casting shadows perfect for puppet theatre, if anyone was interested in that sort of thing. A gentle breeze played through the leaves on trees, catching tendrils of hair, just strong enough to alleviate the heat of the day. The city seemed almost alive with the joy of its citizens, breathing deep and encircling long contented arms around every one of them. It was a day made for picnics, for long walks through the park feeding ducks, for children to play.<p>

It was on the twenty-ninth of June, 1986, that Martha Donovan turned her back for only a moment, and her daughter ceased to exist.

Sally Donovan had been four years old. Her favorite color was froggy green, and when she grew up she wanted to be a mattress. She doted on "her" dog, a chocolate lab named Pookie, and had two older brothers named Scott and Simon. Her mother was fond of the letter 'S'.

Other than the pleasantness of the weather, there was nothing extraordinary about the day on which little Sally disappeared. A day the week before, however, when Detective Inspector August Donovan apprehended no less than four out of five major players in a child smuggling ring, was quite extraordinary indeed.

August knew almost instantly what had happened to his youngest child when he'd been told of her disappearance. He immediately directed his teams into the search for the last smuggler, set up moles in the system to keep watch for a little girl in a froggy green jumper being sold on the black market. Knowing how important it was to find Sally - not just for their boss, but because finding her would clearly cut the path back to the smuggler - the detectives and constables threw themselves into the search with as much voracity as vultures on a carcass.

Months passed, and the flow of abducted children through the underbelly of society stopped altogether, without any sign of Sally Donovan. The cellar of an old house in Brixton, however, held a single tiny occupant. A year passed, and she was given up as dead. A small service was given at the local church, but half the Met showed up to show their solidarity with August. Any other man whose occupation had led to the loss of his youngest child would have retired and spent the rest of his days in misery, but August was not one of those men. He knew that if there was even the smallest chance of his Sally still being alive out there, it would be him who found her.

On the day of the funeral without a corpse, a cellar door was cracked open to shine a sliver of light down onto the dirty, drugged child lying in wait below.

Jefferson Hope smiled down at the little girl in the tattered remains of her green jumper.

"Come on out, Cindy. It's safe now."

The unwitting child crawled up the stairs at a snail's pace, wiping dust and tears from her cheek before reaching her arms out to be picked up, only to have a heavy plastic bracelet that blinked a little green light put around her wrist.

"There," said her new foster father. "Now, see this green light? If it turns red, I'll find you and feed you to a pack of dogs." He swatted her across the face and pushed her into a tiny side-bedroom that she would share with his two natural daughters, who were eight and ten. They ignored her sniffling and showed her the small nest of blankets on the floor that would be her bed for the rest of her natural life, bouncing on their own proper beds as they did so.

"Your name's Cindy Hope now," said the younger, purple letters above her bed spelling ALICE. "If you try to run away, Meghan and me will rip out your fingernails." She smiled beatifically.

"Meghan and I," muttered the other absently.

Sally - or Cindy, rather - sat quietly on her nest and stared at her hands. She missed her mummy. Did she have a mummy anymore?

A week later, Cindy was made to unlock the door of another cellar in the back garden. Inside was a girl a year older than her in a tattered pink party dress named Andrea.

From the very moment the tracking bracelet was snapped around her little wrist Andrea was trying to escape the house and facing the consequences. She was six years old, after all, and many six-year-olds believe themselves to be invincible as long as they believe hard enough. And little Andrea Hooper, well, she could believe her way right out of anything. Almost like clockwork once a month, the skinny little slip of a child found a way out of the locked-up house while Meghan and Alice were at school and Papa Jeff was working. She was tracked down within miles almost every time because of the tracking bracelets that were connected to Papa Jeff's watched, but their "stepfather" never brought his full punishment upon her. He didn't want his own daughters, who had become as attached to the young girls as they might to a pair of disgustingly endearing slugs, to be cross with him. Instead Andrea - renamed Marie - would be beaten and locked in the cellar for a week, or sometimes leashed to the roof of the house and made to sleep in the cold and rain for the night.

"Someday you an' me, we'll run away," Marie promised Cindy almost every moment they were alone together. Even though Cindy had been a prisoner in the house for months longer than her, Marie was older and took her role as surrogate big sister very seriously. She had had a little sister of her own back before her child's mind could remember, a wrinkly little worm named Molly. "We'll grow up big an' strong, an' then we'll tie up Alice an' Meghan an' make 'em eat dirt. Then we'll wait until Papa Jeff comes home from work an' lock him in his taxi an' put a brick on the go-pedal an' watch him drive away forever an' ever."

The girls giggled delightedly over whatever menial chores they were being forced to do, unable to contain the delight at imagining their stepfather driving away in a car going by itself.

Three years after being released from their months of captivity in the cellars, because they had been so very young and with underdeveloped limbic systems, it seemed that Cindy and Marie had almost completely forgotten about the families they had before Papa Jeff and Alice and Meghan. They knew that they had had Mummies and Daddies and there were very fuzzy recollections of siblings, but the faces and names blurred together in muddled confusion. Even their own natural names had faded ages ago, because of the sedating drugs Papa Jeff had kept them on during their time in the cellars. However, the loss of their identities, if anything, made the girls even more determined to someday escape the lives they were leading and find out where they truly belonged.

Despite being unable to go to school without funny questions being raised over their tracking bracelets and occasional battered faces, Cindy and Marie were able to learn how to read and write on their own. Every morning they would rush through their chores until the house was clean, then sneak into Papa Jeff's office and pore over his books with Alice and Meghan's old primary school workbooks they'd nicked from the rubbish bin.

Both girls were clever in their own ways as the months and years wore on. Marie was brilliant at Maths; she could solve any problem put in front of her within minutes and hardly any mistakes. Alice and Meghan usually made her do their schoolwork for them, and she didn't even mind. She loved it, the way the numbers and symbols all fit together so neatly like puzzle pieces. To her, numbers made sense in a life that did not. She could invent formulas for the perfect way to win any quarrel, and used them to her advantage often, even if it did earn her a slap in the face when she turned those powers on Papa Jeff.

Cindy, on the other hand, was gifted with the ability to hide in plain sight, and the art of lying. Or "storytelling," as Marie liked to put it, even though Cindy knew it was nothing so special (though once she did convince Marie that Papa Jeff was only keeping them until they were grown so he could eat them. That had been a funny afternoon). She was quieter than her foster sister, and much less rebellious. More frightened, really, because she saw the way Marie held herself for weeks after trying to run away like her ribs were sore. Cindy hated pain, never wanted anything to do with it. She knew the best places in the house to hide when Alice and Meghan were in the mood to "play," or when Papa Jeff was unhappy with her. She was smaller than Marie, and could fit into all the tiny crevices that no one ever thought about in their own homes. Not to mention she was black, which she was convinced helped her hide in the shadows, even though it really made no difference at all. Because of that, she saw and heard things that were never meant for her eyes and ears. All of it went to some deep-seated part of her memory, to be used when the timing was right.

As the girls grew older and more clever every day together, as the sensationalism behind computers and internet rose to heights unknown, Marie's interests shifted from the simplicity of numbers to the foreign land of programming. It was like learning a second language, and utterly thrilling. It was child's play to guess Alice and Meghan's password on the desktop computer, and soon the girls had abandoned their schoolwork hours early to learn of this new enigma. Especially when they grew up enough that their tracking bracelets could not be mistaken as bulky children's watches, and Papa Jeff moved them to the girls' ankles, being very careful to rotate them every few weeks to avoid rashes and infections.

"Couldn't we, I don't know, send an email to someone?" Cindy asked. "Couldn't they get us out of here?"

Marie shrugged. "Would anyone ever believe us?"

She had a point, really.

It was when Cindy was 17 and Marie 18 that everything changed. Convinced that she would be able to get the proper help, Marie slipped out the window with a promise to return for Cindy as soon as she had the means to do so. With the tracker going haywire the further away Marie ran - this time with more skill and determination than she'd ever had as a six year old - Papa Jeff threw Cindy down the basement stairs and locked her in before leaving to find the older girl. He was gone for four days searching, while Meghan and Alice neglected to either take Cindy out of the cellar or feed her. When Papa Jeff returned, without Marie, he took his anger and frustration out on Cindy. From then on she was locked in the cellar during the day while he was working and made to do her chores at night while everyone was sleeping, and if she woke anyone there would be trouble.

She wouldn't see her foster sister again for two years.

Some strange part of Cindy had somehow hoped that once she turned 18 she would become as brave as Marie, and find a way to escape as well. But her eighteenth year passed way into her nineteenth, and no revelations came. Instead she found recluse in her hiding places, and one night found it to pay off.

Papa Jeff was in the kitchen and Cindy was wedged under the stairs listening as someone came inside the house without knocking. Slow, steady footsteps moved around the hall until they came to rest in the kitchen where Papa Jeff was sitting at work.

"Evening, Jeff."

"Sir."

"Oh, you know it's not really me, Jeffy. Just a puppet. But I can hear you. And see you. Don't you worry about that, old sport."

"I...I won't, sir."

Cindy swallowed, not liking anything that could make Papa Jeff sound afraid.

"Do you know what's happening in a month, Jeff?"

"No, sir."

The sound of papers flopping onto the kitchen table.

"A benefit?"

"Yes, Jeff. Three days. For the families of children lost in your ring all those years ago. First day is a 5k marathon, second day a silent auction, and third day a ball. I do so love a good ball; the dresses burn so prettily."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You're a clever man, Jeff. I'm almost certain you can read. Your instructions are quite clear."

A brief silence as her stepfather read the files. "Botulinum? In the water?"

"Just so. Every competitor will be dead by nightfall."

"And...and Tsetse pupae in the artifacts?"

"The shipment will arrive the night before the benefit begins. They should hatch within two weeks. Buyers will be dead within a few days after that."

A cough. "Right. And the third a bomb, how very...well, messy, really. Why a bomb?"

"Call it a weakness of mine."

"Right. Alright. Why do you need me to do this?"

"Your daughters will be settled for life if you pull this off, Jeff. The crown prince is taking a very intimate interest in this benefit, and participating in every event. Kill him, and any grandchildren you may have will be set as well."

Papa Jeff swallowed thickly. "Right. And if I fail?"

"Let's hope you don't."

"R-right."

And then the man was gone. Papa Jeff leafed through the files for a bit longer before tucking them under his arm and going to bed. Cindy swallowed a lump in her throat, fighting cold shakes that had suddenly overwhelmed her in the space under the stairs. She knew that her stepfather was a horrible person, of course she did, but to murder hundreds of people without a second thought, just for money?

She had to tell someone, somehow, but it was impossible. Even if she could somehow email Scotland Yard about the threats, they probably got dozens of emails like that every day and would never take Alice's email address - preshypantslol69 - seriously, and hers was the only account that Cindy knew the password to anymore since Meghan actually made the effort to change hers once in a while.

Feeling utterly helpless and unable to control any bloody thing in her whole damn life, Cindy shuffled back into Meghan's bedroom (Alice was at uni and the elder had returned home to help in the family business) and settled down onto the paper-thin mattress she'd inherited from a skip. She and Marie had shared it for as long as they'd been together.

Too pent-up to sleep after almost an hour tossing and turning, Cindy got up and snuck outside with little fuss. She and Marie had figured out ages ago exactly how far their bracelets would allow them to venture without trouble. They could go a full three houses down before they went into the red, but when Marie had gotten it into her head to try going to one of the neighbors for help some sort of sensors attached to the gate set it off. Papa Jeff was always cleverer than they anticipated.

The cool night air cleared her head, and she was able to think again. How could she stop this from happening? What could she do while confined to this blasted stretch of road? She was completely helpless, and the crown prince Gregory was going to be killed because of it. Meghan had had a tabloid photo of the prince hanging on the bedroom wall for weeks until Papa Jeff's boss made it clear how he felt about the royal family. Then Meghan took it down, and Sally had scrounged it from the bin. She didn't know why, but there was just something in the prince's face, those deep brown eyes, that made her feel a little less alone in the great big world. She didn't want him to die, especially not when she had the information necessary to prevent it.

As she turned round to walk the length back to the house and repeat, Cindy's foot caught on a crack in the pavement and she tripped right over. Her bracelet chipped, and she froze as though somehow the minute damage would cause the whole thing to go haywire. When the green light didn't change she let out a sigh of relief. Papa Jeff was short enough with her since Marie had left, and Cindy didn't want the tantrum that would result if she needed a new bracelet.

Three weeks of the four passed while Cindy continued to worry about what she was going to do, for surely she had to do something. If she didn't, and all those people died, it would be just as bad as killing them herself. Then, one night as she lie awake fretting, a slip of paper sailed through the open window and landed right on Cindy's chest.

_You can save them all. Be at the end house at midnight, the eve of the benefit._  
><em>Love,<em>  
><em>Marie<em>

A thrill shot through Cindy's chest. How...? Marie knew what was happening? Was she back at last? Leaping to her feet Cindy rushed to the window, ignoring the blind kick Meghan shot at her in her sleep to peer outside, but there was no one there. Choking down disappointment, she went back to bed.

There is no word in the English language to describe the apprehension Cindy felt as the days to the benefit dwindled. Then, on the very eve of the 5k, she finished with her chores, found something to eat that didn't need preparation, checked the kitchen clock about four dozen times, and ventured out into the night for the end house. Her skin was buzzing with the thought of seeing Marie again, so much so that when she saw the dark mass slowly approaching the boundary, the second figure went completely unnoticed as Cindy drank in the image of her foster sister for the first time in two years. Her hair was longer, darker, shinier and thicker with care, her face softer and curves more pronounced.

"Marie you look...amazing!" she gushed, choking on her own joy at the sight of her foster sister.

Marie smiled coolly, tight lines of tension around her eyes and mouth, then turned to the man at her side. Only then did Cindy notice the gangly young man with the big nose, garment bag, and umbrella. He nodded succinctly at Marie's inquiring look, and within moments the older woman's cool demeanor had fallen away and Cindy was being enveloped in her arms. "You have grown up so beautifully," she murmured into Cindy's hair with a muffled voice. "And I'm not Marie anymore, that wretched name he gave me. I go by Anthea now, and a dozen other names depending on the day." Marie - Anthea - stroked Cindy's curls and smiled beatifically.

"That's brilliant!" breathed Cindy happily, unable to believe her eyes even with all the evidence right there.

Then reluctantly, of course, she looked at the man who had granted Anthea permission to embrace her sister. He politely inclined his head toward her. "Mycroft Holmes," he said in way of greeting. "I am Anthea's employer. And I'm sorry, because wish as I do that we could secret you away this very moment, we need you to be our - as they say - inside man."

"Inside man?"

Mycroft Holmes swung his umbrella in a lazy arc, never once tearing his gaze from her. "You received your sister's note?" At her nod he continued. "You are capable of stopping these vicious attacks. From what my esteemed assistant tells me, you have a gift of observation. Use that and your cunning to your advantage, because I can only help you so far. This is your disguise for tomorrow afternoon; be sure to wear the sunglasses and cap." He handed over the garment bag without further ado - Cindy unzipped it to find sleek designer jogging gear - if such a thing even existed - inside.

Her eyes darted between Mycroft Holmes and her foster sister, who had reigned back in her aloof demeanor. "There's just one problem," apologized Cindy, tugging up her trouser leg to bare her ankle and its blinking bracelet. There was no way she would get away long enough to-

With another nod from her employer, Anthea stepped forward and pulled a small clamp-looking device from her handbag. She closed its jaws over Cindy's bracelet and hit the small switch. It briefly buzzed, and when Anthea pulled the device away the lights had gone out on her bracelet.

"It only lasts for around sixteen hours, give or take," explained Anthea apologetically. "The marathon is in the morning, so you should have plenty of time."

"But what exactly am I doing?" asked Cindy, feeling slow and useless. Some inside man she was.

Holmes smiled in a perfect imitation of sympathy. "We need you to firstly prevent the attack, then find the mole in the system; whoever has been leaking private government information will be present to admire their handiwork."

Blinking dazedly, different thoughts chased their way through Cindy's head. "But...I don't understand. If you know about the attacks, why can't you do anything about them?"

That seemed to have hit a nerve, but Cindy could only tell because she'd had practice with her foster family. "There's a specialist of sorts working the case," he grimaced mildly, "however, it would be in everyone's interest if the conflict was stopped before he can access anything vital. He tends to take a more _destructive_ route in his investigations."

He may as well have said, "Cindy, you're our only hope," for the way it shook her very core. She nodded, not trusting her own voice. Holmes seemed to understand.

"Good luck, Sally," he said gravely, and then he and Marie - Anthea - were gone, leaving her to blink confusedly in their wake.

Who was Sally?


	2. Chapter 1

Even with the endless possibility of her limited freedom, Cindy knew better than to go out exploring when she had to conserve her energy for the day ahead. Papa Jeff locked her in the cellar and left early for work as usual, and an hour later Meghan threw some food down and tromped out. The moment the door closed Cindy was at the tattered old window Marie had always used to sneak out, and no matter how many times Papa Jeff tried to fix it there was always a corner loose.

She stripped off Alice's hand-me-down pajamas to uncover the jogging gear she'd donned underneath, pulling on the sunglasses and tying her hair up into the cap before crawling out the window. Before she left she double-checked her bracelet - still good - and lodged a small stick in the corner of the window to make sure she could get back in after the race. She still had no idea how she was going to pull this off, but lying typically came hand-in-hand with improvising, so she wasn't too worried.

It wasn't hard to find the grounds for the 5k; there were fliers and advertisements all over the city for the massive benefit, and within minutes Cindy had found the starting line. Runners had lined up and spectators were wrapping around the block. Quickly consulting a map, she found all the markers where water would be handed out, knowing that Meghan would be one of the volunteers there dosing the supplies with Botulinum. No wonder that Mycroft bloke had wanted her to wear sunglasses and a cap, or the older woman would recognize her in a heartbeat.

Under the guise of warming up, she jogged down alongside the track until she reached the first checkmark. No sign of Meghan, though there were a few kids mucking about nearby on bikes. How would she get the volunteer crew to dump out the poisoned water without anyone drinking it first?

There was a shout of laughter to her left, from the kids as they rode away down the track, and inspiration struck.

"Excuse me?" Cindy called as she strode up to the woman at the table. She was unpacking small plastic cups, but hadn't yet started filling them. Cindy was sure to put a distressed look on her face before the woman looked up. "Excuse me, ma'am, but those kids just put something in the water!" she cried.

The woman looked down the track after the accused children and wrinkled her brow. "I din't see nuthin'," she dismissed with a shrug.

Right, okay, that wasn't working. Time to get teary and make her uncomfortable.

"No, I know I saw it!" continued Cindy incessantly, letting her voice quake and lower lip tremble. "They put something in there, and I heard them talking about going down the line and doing the same at all the checkpoints! They're gonna poison us or something!"

A man's distinct shadow loomed over the water table and the woman behind it froze. Cindy instinctively tensed herself, ready to curl in a ball if blows started falling, but instead a mild, gravelly voice asked, "Everything okay here, ladies?"

Now was her chance to really sell...well, something. She spun on her heel, temporarily blinded by the sun even with shades on, and scowled at the newcomer. "Are you in charge of any of this?" she demanded, shielding her eyes with one hand.

The man chuckled, and Cindy's eyes adjusted to see that she was standing less than two feet away from the crown prince himself, Gregory Lestrade. "I'd say so, yeah," he agreed loftily while Cindy's stomach clenched with horror. She'd just snapped at the crown prince. No wonder the other woman had blanched. The prince seemed to take her inadvertent condescension well, and extended a hand to her. "Hello, I'm Greg."

Slightly stunned, she took his hand and allowed it to be shaken. "Yeah, I know," she vaguely said, then quickly snapped her posture back into its previous state. "Something needs to be done about the water." Her voice lacked the same luster it'd had when talking to the woman, but was still strong in comparison to her shock.

The prince - who went by Greg, apparently - became serious at her tone, and crossed his arms thoughtfully before nodding her away from the crowds. Cindy obediently followed, feeling distinctly like she was about to get whipped for something Marie had done, and wasn't too surprised when half the crowd was on their tails regardless. She was walking with a celebrity, after all.

"Sorry about this," apologized Greg, grimacing over his shoulder at some of the teenage girls who were still clinging on after a whole block of walking. Cindy shook her head but otherwise didn't speak as they went inside the nearest building - a cafe, by the looks of it - and Greg kindly asked for them not to be disturbed other than please bringing two coffees before sitting down in a booth. "Can't get any privacy, indoors or out." He sighed and ruffled his dark brown hair with one hand; he looked tired for someone so young. "Now, what is so important about the water being dumped out?"

After being momentarily preoccupied with looking around the cafe - she'd never been inside anywhere other than her own house within memory - Cindy snapped back to face the prince and folded her hands, suddenly more nervous than she'd been all morning. Lying to some random woman was one thing, but lying to the future king of their nation was a horse of a different color. Hell, a different spectrum.

"It's...my kid brother," she forced out as though the whole affair was horribly stressful and embarrassing. "He and his mates thought it would be funny to put, er," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "-laxatives-" and brought it back up as Greg snorted, "in the water for the race. Only, well, I looked at the directions he used on his computer, and I don't think what he made was a - one of those."

Greg's eyebrows shot up and he leaned forward slightly. "And what do you think it is instead?" he inquired in a low voice too husky to be allowed. Heat shot right up Cindy's back and into her face.

She swallowed roughly, half part of the act and half trying to pull herself together. "I think he accidentally made a poison. I don't want him to go to jail for some stupid prank, sir - er - your Highness?" Really uncertain of what to call him, she bit her lip as he chuckled again.

"Just Greg's fine, really," he assured her. "I'll have the water replaced in just a tick if you're so worried, okay?" She nodded with a grateful smile. "Then, once that's all cleared up, you can take off those sunglasses and tell me what's really going on. Stay here." His voice had gone firm and deep on the final command, and with enviable ease he rose from the booth they'd been sequestered in. It hadn't been a suggestion; it had carried the hard edge of I'll be back with the authorities and if you're very, very well-behaved I'll let you claim insanity and be sent to a nice mental hospital instead of federal prison.

Of course the moment the door swung shut Cindy was on her feet, watching. Greg - the prince, dammit - didn't look back, so perfectly confident that the rank of his office would keep her in place. Well, too bad for him, she'd been raised in a house that despised the royals. She slipped out the door and into the crowd before he was finished giving the orders, which were thankfully genuine.

"...all the way down, yes. We've had a tip-off about possible tampering with the water..."

It was easy, almost child's play, to disappear - so much easier with pliant bodies than it was with furniture or wall corners - and for a moment all Cindy craved was to do just that, to vanish among these people and never return. Surely Papa Jeff couldn't find her if she ran away now, could he? London was vast and damn near infinite, it sometimes seemed. She could do it. She could find some dumpy little flat and some dumpy little job in a dumpy little shop and it would be perfect because it wasn't that goddamn house.

But then she thought of all of the information she could find on this terrorist bloke while she was at Papa Jeff's, of all the people who could get hurt if she wasn't in the right place at the right time, of Marie's - Anthea's - disappointment in her, and the longing was staved off. Just two more days. Two more days, and she would be out of Hell for good. Too bad she didn't believe in God.

She jogged home in contemplative silence, chucking out the sunglasses and cap as she neared home. Then she pulled the note left from Marie out of the window frame, shimmied through, stripped off the jogging kit, pulled on the clothes she'd left under the stairs, climbed back out, chucked the kit in the neighbor's bin, shimmied back in yet again, closed the window, and waited. Three hours after she returned, her bracelet flickered back to life, and she fought a sigh. Back to the old grind, but not before reading Marie's note.

Midnight. Back garden behind the shed. -Marie

Meghan came home from the marathon near sunset in the throes of a fully-onset tantrum, screeching like a cat and throwing things in her rage. Cindy did the maths in her head - Meghan had probably stayed around after the run to keep an eye on how quickly the poison progressed. Botulinum only took a few hours to take effect, so she would have noticed something before leaving. She knew it hadn't worked, that someone had ruined their perfect plan.

Cindy would have smiled at this small victory, knowing that no one had been hurt, if Meghan hadn't stomped down the stairs and taken out all that anger on her. She curled up in a ball as she always tried to do before the real violence began, but Meghan kicked the small of her back until the muscles sprang painfully and made her arch, then started punching her savagely in the stomach and sides until the frustration and anger were gone. Panting heavily, the older woman calmly rolled Cindy into some semblance of the recovery position with one foot before going back upstairs.

For what felt like hours Cindy lie perfectly still except for the involuntary trembling in her screaming muscles, trying not to be ill. She could hardly move her legs without pulling the bruises and possibly cracked ribs, but when she heard the door open when Papa Jeff came home from work forced herself up without a sound passing through her lips. He and Meghan talked for a few minutes a she clearly explained what had happened at the run. It became deadly quiet upstairs, and Papa Jeff's footsteps started creaking toward the basement stairs. Cindy tensed and shook, trying to mentally prepare for two beatings in one day, which wasn't too uncommon but still very unpleasant.

"Cindy, come up here," called Papa Jeff quietly from the top of the stairs.

With apprehension and pain dragging through her gut, Cindy pulled herself up to the kitchen, flushed and panting after even that small trek. Papa Jeff stared, coldly calm, as she put an indignantly wounded look on her face and wrapped one arm around her middle. "What have I done now?" she asked.

Papa Jeff shook his head with a frown. "Nothing. The floors are a mess, clean them up."

"I just did it last night."

She immediately regretted the decision to speak as he struck her across the face. At least it was open-handed; it would be hard to be undercover with a black eye. "Then do it again! Or do you think you're too good for a bit of work, is that it? I took you in and didn't leave you for the wolves, I feed you, I put clothes on your back, I give you a place to sleep at night, and you can't even clean the floors, you little fucking princess?" He hit her again, harder but still open-handed, and she quickly bowed her head to avoid more blows.

"Okay, okay, I'll do it!" she conceded, ducking even further to get the cleaning supplies from under the sink. Papa Jeff watched her for several moments before shuffling into his office with Meghan on his heels, complaining about her shit day all the way there. Under the pretense of wiping up a stain, Cindy crawled to the office door and listened at the keyhole.

There were a few moments of puttering about before Papa Jeff spoke. "I know what happened, Meg. My employer called. An anonymous tip?"

"Apparently some woman showed up and demanded the water be dumped out. At all the checkpoints. Someone must have gotten sloppy and left plans lying about."

"Or cold feet."

A stunned silence. "What, me? Dad, I would never jeopardize us like that!"

"Not maliciously, no."

"Dad!"

"Sweetheart, it's alright. I know what you're feeling; it's your first big project and there's a lot at stake. Of course you'll be-"

"Have you really forgotten who made Mum her morning tea the day she died?"

A moment of sputtering. "That was an accident."

"No, that was genius."

Silence.

"Dad, I'll make sure nothing goes wrong tomorrow. I've even got a special artifact set aside to bait the prince."

"Let me hear it." Papa Jeff's rickety chair groaned as he lowered himself into it.

"DCI Donovan's family has decided to auction off dear lost Sally's favorite stuffed animal. The prince is a sentimental fool, and will feel good about spending an exorbitant donation on something as useless as a stuffed toy. I've planted all of the leftover pupae inside of it so the rest of the royal family can get a taste as well."

"Perhaps you do have the brains for this after all."

Cindy could practically hear Meghan beaming from behind the door.

"I won't let you down, Dad."

"You couldn't let me down, my love, but it's not me I'm worried about."

Cindy scurried to the other side of the room before Meghan left, flinching as the elder passed only because she knew it would boost her arrogance even further. Confidence led to mistakes, nine times out of ten.

-

Greg and his best mate/assistant/live-in security officer Sir John Watson of the RAMC (just sired last week, thank you very much) staggered up the stairs into Greg's flat at eight, feeling it was more like 2am. They collapsed onto the sofa, rubbing their faces and groaning, silently wondering just how to persuade the other to make tea, for several long minutes before Greg started giggling like a schoolboy.

"S'not funny, Greg," muttered John. "Someone tried to assassinate you. And about a hundred other people."

That only seemed to make Greg laugh harder. "But it was Botox!" he cackled, edging into hysteria after several moments of floundering.

With a sigh John sat up straighter and squeezed his mate's shoulder until he calmed down. "Botulism poisoning is serious stuff. If we hadn't been tipped off, everyone who touched that water would be dead or dying by now, and we would have no idea why because the stuff's damn near untraceable. Well," he amended, "Sherlock could probably figure it out."

Greg let out a groan. "Again with your bloody boyfriend!"

"Oi, he's not my boyfriend."

"Could've fooled me."

They glared daggers at one another for several moments before Greg resignedly got up to make the tea. Crawling pitifully along the length of the sofa before he was lying astride it, John buried his head into a cushion and silently bemoaned that a 25-year-old should not feel this exhausted at eight in the evening. "What about that girl, then?" he called out into the kitchen over the clinking of cups and the hiss of the kettle. "The one who tipped you off."

There were several minutes of silence as Greg prepared the tea, though obviously using the time he had to think about what he would next say. "I'm not sure," he finally admitted, shuffling out of the kitchen and passing John his mug. "I just heard a fuss, went over to see what was wrong, and she was getting so worked up I took her aside for some privacy. Said it was her kid brother messing about trying to make a laxative."

He'd seen right through that, of course. It had been too easy to see how anxious she was, the way her hands fiddled with her coffee cup, keeping her sunglasses on even in a dim cafe, the hesitation before beginning her false story.

John nodded knowingly. "Bit hard to make a naturally-occurring poison from a kid's chemistry kit when you're trying to make a laxative."

"Mm."

They pondered over their tea for several minutes, the only sound in the flat that of them sipping and stirring restlessly. Then, John asked, "Was she pretty?" He winced as a spoon hit him in the side of the head.

"Come on, John, she had to be about twenty!" groused Greg petulantly.

"Twenty-seven's not that bad in comparison," shrugged John back with a wicked grin.

The elder rolled his eyes with much less elegance than one would expect from royalty as he reclined back further in his chair. "Whatever, mate. And I dunno if she was pretty. Kept her sunglasses and cap on the whole time, didn't she?"

The amused tension in John's shoulders vanished to be replaced by a tension of a different sort. He went dangerously quiet, and Greg braced himself for the explosion.

"You're telling me..."

"Yep I am."

"That you went to a secluded area..."

"Sure did."

"...with a woman..."

"Mm."

"...who kept her face hidden..."

"Quite."

"..and didn't call me first?"

"Listen, John," he finally sighed, leaning forward onto his knees. "I know you're upset-"

"Your father's going to skin me alive if he finds out I let you go off on your own!" John groaned, pressing both hands over his face and leaning back into the recesses of the sofa. "She could have killed you!"

"-but I can take care of myself!" finished Greg as though John hadn't spoken. "I went to Police Academy for four years, you know. I studied body language among a dozen other things. She was a specky, skinny little thing that didn't look strong enough to stay upright in a decent gust of wind. It was a gut feeling. Not to mention she was tipping me off about the assassination attempt. Usually people preventing my death aren't out to kill me."

John looked as though he dearly wanted to argue the point further but was so apoplectic that he couldn't speak. Instead he picked up the mail from the coffee table and instantly threw it back down with disgust. "Looks like you're hopelessly in love again," he muttered. "Don't know why you get these rags, anyway."

Shrugging, "They're funny," Greg scraped the magazine toward him with the heel of his foot, examined the front cover, and grimaced. "Cripes, that's just not right." He tossed it in the vague direction of the bin, not too bothered when it didn't land. John silently despaired. "Well, who knows, maybe our mystery helper will be back with more information tomorrow."

"Yeah," snorted John, "because anonymous tippers always come back." Then he sighed and stared at his teacup. "Fancy a beer?"


	3. Chapter 2

As soon as Papa Jeff and Meghan were sleeping Cindy was in the back garden, braving the chill air rather than spending another moment in the house. She trudged through the thick bushes around the garden shed and lowered herself carefully to the ground, grimacing against the pain in her ribs and stomach. It really wasn't that bad, so long as she didn't breathe.

Even with her left side almost completely useless Papa Jeff had made her cook dinner, probably just to further "teach her her place" or some rubbish. Like she didn't already know her place as a stupid little nobody with no past, and no future so long as the Hopes were still living. The thought made her inconceivably angry, and she fumed quietly until midnight, until she could hear her sister and Holmes approaching again.

"Are you okay?" asked Anthea instantly, concern for Cindy's drooping form managing to melt away the coolness she adopted in her new life. Without waiting for an answer she pulled from her bag a wrapping bandage and offered it to Cindy for her ribs.

Mycroft politely turned away as the sisters did their necessary work. "Did you get any names for our terrorist?" he asked over his shoulder.

She is forced by her own halting breaths to wait until Ma- Anthea has bound up her ribs, with resigned ease after so many years of practice, and covered her back up before speaking. "No. I didn't have time; the prince was getting suspicious."

Even as she fumbled with her bag Anthea looked up with boggling eyes. "You met the prince?"

"As have you, Isabelle," sighed Holmes with an indulgent smile. "More than once."

Anthea - apparently Isabelle tonight - snorted, "Hardly," before helping Cindy to her feet. "I never spoke to him. Did you? Was he nice? Did he fancy you? I'll bet he did." She beamed, and even through the makeup and expensive clothes Cindy could clearly see the brightly rebellious girl who used to be a prisoner right along with her.

"So you didn't get a name, not even a whisper," continued Mycroft as though there had been no interruption. It wasn't a question, and the darkness in his eyes made Cindy shiver.

She shook her head. "No. I'm sorry. I'll try to get it tomorrow."

Staring down his long nose at her, Mycroft quirked a small false smile as Anthea passed her two paracetamol and a bottle of water for the pain. "Let's hope you do. The auction starts at two o' clock tomorrow afternoon; we'll be back in the morning to deactivate your bracelet or you won't have enough time. My esteemed colleague anticipated that your foster family would vent their frustrations on you, and requested we make an appearance to tend to any medical needs," he explained before Cindy could ask. "Are you feeling better now?"

Even though the paracetamol hadn't yet taken affect she nodded gratefully, wrapping her sister in a loose embrace before the pair set off again. A gentle drizzle started to fall as Anthea picked the back gate's lock, and instantly Holmes had popped open his umbrella and covered the both of them with its shelter. If Cindy were a bit closer she would have seen the warm, beaming smile Anthea offered him before the gate popped open. Again, within moments, like some sort of weird modern magic, they vanished from sight. Cindy fought a shiver. That was just damn creepy.

-

John checked the room where the auction was being held at least half a dozen times before so much as thinking of allowing Greg inside. He inspected window latches, door hinges, cracks in the apex of the walls and ceiling, even the bloody holes in the antique carpet, but there was nothing. Breathing a sigh of relief, he pulled out his mobile phone (fabulous inventions, those, when one had a signal nearby) and called Greg to alert him of the all-clear.

In accordance with his prediction, John had been on the receiving end of a very severe reprimand from the king that morning after the papers had come out with the news. Damn bloody tabloids having ears bloody everywhere. Luckily, however, due to the prince's intervention, John had not been sacked. It was a good thing when you spent so much time with your employer that you became good, loyal friends. John's father had been the king's personal guard, after all, so it seemed almost fitting that John carry on the position for the next generation, even if he had scarpered off a few years to join the army.

Waltzing in as though completely unbothered by the previous day's attempt on his life, Greg tucked his hands into his pockets and started instructing volunteers in where to put all of the items up for auction. Most of them were old paintings by unremarkable artists, or vases from the '80s. However, after a few dozen volunteers brought in their items, one young woman with tantalizingly long blonde hair and dark eyes came in, almost tenderly cradling a stuffed frog. She smiled tremulously at the prince, and Greg couldn't help but ask her what the importance of the toy was.

"Oh," breathed the woman softly, arranging the love-worn frog to sit on a little wooden chair. Its limbs were stiff with lack of use, and the stains were faded, but there were traces of dust that had obviously been very hastily brushed away from the matted fur. "This belonged to Sally Donovan."

Brow furrowed, Greg blinked at the woman. "The DCI's little girl?" he asked, even though he was already certain of it.

"Mm," agreed the woman, brushing a bit of the fur around one black bead-eye. "He and his wife thought it was prudent. Though I'm really not sure who would want such a sad thing. It's sort of like inviting her ghost into your home, isn't it?" She smiled sadly, and Greg compulsively clapped a hand softly on her shoulder. "It's just so sad! Those poor children, and they never even found Sally's body. Who would be so sick and twisted not even to let the poor girl's parents have her body back?"

Her whole face seemed to contort as she fought a sniffle, and Greg dutifully wrapped an arm around her, ignoring John's deploring looks, until she had pulled herself together. "Here," he said, offering a handkerchief from the pocket of his now-rumpled suit.

She beamed and dabbed at her watery eyes. "Thanks. God, I'm sorry, I must look like an idiot. I just hope someone takes the toy; it would mean so much to Sally's family to know their loss is going to a good cause."

"Of course," agreed Greg instantly. With another shaky smile the woman returned his handkerchief and left to fetch more items for the display. He watched as more meaningless items were rolled into the room, even while half his mind lingered on the doll, so frayed and worn with the love of a child long dead.

Without being told, he knew that John was hovering just behind him. "No one's going to buy that toy," the soldier murmured sadly. "Why would they want a dead child's plaything that's too worn out even to reuse?"

"I know," replied Greg with a twist of his mouth. "What if...I mean to say...what if I bought it? I've got the money to spare, haven't I? And it's for a good cause. Yeah. I'll just get it and bin it, or maybe even give it back to her family."

John grandly rolled his eyes but didn't try to discourage him, knowing it was pointless. "You sentimental idiot," he instead sighed. "Keep your head in the game and an eye out for our guardian angel, okay mate?"

He nodded absently and went to find himself a quick drink before guests started arriving. He hated these events, always full of rich pricks trying to one-up each other and women trying to throw themselves at him. God forbid he try to spend his last years of youth happy and single. Or at least trying to meet a girl on his own instead of having all his dates pre-screened and arranged by his security detail. It was both frustrating and extremely disheartening. No one treated him like just a bloke, it was all _Your Highnes_s this and _I know everything about you; I read the tabloids!_ that. Bloody annoying.

But that girl yesterday...she hadn't looked at him like that, had she? Sure, she'd been surprised to see him there, but within moments had regained control over the situation, even talking down to him. She'd been refreshingly calm as she explained the situation (well, alright, lied about the situation) and didn't balk at his orders to stay put. Sure, it might get annoying if that happened all the time, but it was a nice change in the tedium.

Once the guests had all arrived and were milling around drinking at two in the afternoon, Greg settled himself against the wall and crossed his arms. Might as well be comfortable for as long as possible before the droves started rolling in.

Across the room, standing stoic as ever by the door, John caught his eye and nodded the all-clear. They'd agreed the night before on a strategy to use if the girl came back for any reason. They needed all the information on her they could get, after all.

Fifteen minutes before the auction was due to begin, they spotted her. Appearing to have just shaken off none other than Sherlock Holmes (who very well may have been high that very moment; blast it all), she was milling around the edges of the room, keeping a decorative scarf tucked up over her chin and fashionable shades over her eyes. Even so, the shapes of her face and nose were enough, along with the consternated expression on her face. Greg didn't signal John right away, but watched as the girl tiptoed along the tables of items to be auctioned off, stopping at the end to look at Sally Donovan's stuffed frog. A tiny, trembling hand reached forward as though to touch the toy, but pulled back as if burned at the last moment. She cast her eyes around the room once, not even noticing him.

John was watching him watch her. Time to get to work. He nodded and waggled his eyebrows, their signal, and they casually made their way toward her at a level pace.

"Excuse me, miss, but do you have an ID?" John asked, all manners as usual.

The girl stiffened as though she'd been struck by lightning, eyes bulging almost comically when she spotted Greg beside her, then hissed out a carefully-controlled breath, holding herself very stiffly. "I'm a volunteer, remember?" she asked in a low voice laced with cautious confidence. "I was at the race yesterday."

"And if you were a volunteer you would have an ID, and there'd be no problem, would there?" replied John airily, bobbing on the balls of his feet and looking all for the world that he was simply inspecting a piece of art for sale.

Shifting from foot-to-foot and wincing again, the girl kept staring down at the stuffed frog. "I can't do that," she murmured, though without resignation or defeat in her voice.

John briefly met Greg's eyes before shaking his head. "Then we'll have to ask you to leave. Come on, I'll escort you."

He reached out for her arm and she recoiled violently, muscles in her jaw twitching as she clenched her teeth. Some part of Greg's mind filed the body language signals away for later, but felt an odd sense of foreboding as the girl turned her dark eyes on him, ignoring John as easily as flipping a switch.

"I need to have a word with you."

"Fine, fire away."

"Not here; in private."

He'd been hoping to unsettle the girl with his instant response, but then found himself to be the one gaping as she shot right back, jaw stubbornly squared and chin tilted upward. She looked like she very dearly wanted to cross her arms but didn't. Blinking and shaking his head, Greg did the only thing that he could undoubtedly fall back on. "You ought to have some respect and stop making orders of me, miss."

For a brief moment something in her eyes dimmed - she was sinking away, at least emotionally and mentally - but then she whiplashed back at him with a snarl. "And you ought to stop being such a great spoiled prat, and realize that I'm trying to tell you something bloody important!"

"Miss, if you're going to be hostile, I really must ask you to leave." John turned directly toward her then, no longer pretending to be interested in the auction, but Greg halted him with a wave of the hand. The shorter man bristled in sparkling form but otherwise did not argue.

Relieved, Greg crossed his arms and leaned in towards the girl, who had inched nearer to get away from John's free-grabbing hands. "What's so important then?" he asked.

"I said _private_," the girl ground out between gritted teeth.

"Anything you can say to me can be said to John. I trust him with my life."

Despite the continued bristling, that earned him a nod of thanks from behind the girl's back.

"It's not about him; I couldn't care less about him," she argued, ignoring the plaintive "Hey!" it drew from the soldier. "If one of these people overhear it could cause a panic."

She kept up her steady glare until finally, flustered and floundering, Greg acquiesced. "Fine. Second door on he left. Lead on." John opened his mouth to protest, but Greg shook him off. "Watch the door?"

John huffed. "Yes, _Your Highness_."

Watching the girl grab up the stuffed frog before setting off, Greg winced; he always knew he was in for an earful later when John rolled out the formalities. "Postpone the auction," added the girl under her breath, "just for 15 minutes; that's all I need."

Greg nodded and went to speak to the auctioneer, vaguely noticing when a short man moved in to talk to the girl behind his back.

When he returned with a half hour more time ("These things never start according to schedule, son, it's no trouble to me.") the girl was rooted in place with her back to the room, pale as a ghost and shaking. John had been cornered by Holmes (who Greg was now even more certain was his boyfriend due to the prolonged eye-contact and complete disregard for personal space) and apparently had missed whatever it was to have upset the girl. Concern and curiosity warred within Greg as he touched her elbow and felt how drastically her breathing had accelerated in just a few minutes. "Come on, we're clear," he murmured.

Nodding shakily, the girl shot off like a bullet while still at a walking pace, gripping his arm in a vice. She shot a glance over her shoulder; Greg followed suit to see the blonde woman who'd set out the stuffed frog watching them with a strange expression on her face. They reached the side room and she pulled him inside, gasping with unmistakable pain.

"What the hell is going on?" Greg asked as the girl situated herself behind the door, swaying dangerously. He checked to make sure John was keeping watch outside the door before closing and locking it behind him. He touched her elbow, and she jerked back into the wall with a yelp.

"Sorry," she gasped, wrapping an arm around her middle. "Just...someone here I'd rather not see me."

"Who?" He was beginning to feel angry instead of curious with all this mysterious cryptic bull, even as concern grated the inside of his ribcage for the pallor of the girl's face. "I mean it, no dodging or running off like you did yesterday. I want the whole story."

"I know you do," sighed the girl wearily, pinching her lips together for a moment. "And I want to tell you, really I do, but if anyone finds out I'm helping you I'll be the one to pay."

He threw out his arms in frustration, gesturing to the whole of the palace that was serving as location for the two latter events of the benefit. "You don't think we can offer you protection?"

"Your protection is useless if you're dead," she bitterly pointed out, "and if I don't go back, he won't stop until he finds me. And probably kills me."

This was getting exhausting. Every line she spoke twisted him round in circles until he lost his footing all over again and had to go back to the start. "Who would find you? And how?" he asked, feeling quite the idiot as she tutted at him.

She shook her head at the first question, not totally unexpected, but hesitated at the second. Even Greg could see the cogs working behind her eyes. Before she could invent a reply, however, a woman's voice carried in to them, mentioning the name Cindy. As if a whip had been brandished at her the girl fell against the wall, let out another muffled yelp of pain, and crumbled to the floor with Greg catching the brunt of her weight at the last possible moment. "Christ! Are you okay?" he asked as she sucked in fast shallow breaths. She shook her head, tears glittering in her eyes, and shifted her crisp white shirt to show the restrictive bandages underneath. Broken ribs.

"You didn't have that yesterday," he stated dully.

"It's-"

"Did someone hurt you for helping me?"

"No!" she blurted out. "Well, I mean, they don't know I'm the one helping you." After a moment of deliberation, she reached down and tugged up the hem of her trousers' right leg. A tracking bracelet, one used for prisoners under home arrest, was wrapped around her ankle, both red and green lights blinking docilely up at him. "This is how he would find me. It's been disabled, but only temporarily. It's due to activate again around five."

At her nod of consent, Greg leaned farther forward and carefully inspected the bracelet's thick plastic shell, running a finger over the serial numbers on the side, tapping the unresponsive lights. "You're a prisoner," he breathed, unable to shake the coil of terror the sight awoke in the bottom of his gut.

He must have hovered too long, because the girl nudged her trouser leg back over the bracelet and cleared her throat. "Yeah, well," she muttered, but didn't elaborate.

Suddenly there was a chorus of shouting outside followed by a crash. Greg and the girl looked at one another inquiringly, hoping the other was responsible somehow, but it seemed that they both were set up for disappointment. Greg very carefully helped the girl to her feet, making sure they were both presentable before opening the door.

The auction room was in shambles, tables overturned and small black specks scattered across the plush carpet. In the center of the room stood Sherlock bloody Holmes, grinning and triumphant as scandalized upper-crust citizens gaped openly.

"Pupae of the Tsetse fly!" announced the great bloody prat. John was already gently picking his way through the room to get to him, shooting apologetic looks all round. "I knew it was something. John, didn't I tell you I knew? Because I did, I _knew!_"

"Yeah Sherlock, you knew, congratulations." The soldier grabbed the skinny man's arm and hauled him off into the room Greg and the girl had been using for their little conference, a long-suffering expression on his weary face all the while. Poor lovestruck bastard.

The girl turned to him, along with half of the room, while the other half panicked over the poisonous flies in the objects they had been about to buy. "Believe me now?" asked the girl with one eyebrow arched.

And, God help him, he did.

-

Cindy should have known that the prince wouldn't let her off so easy once Holmes' brother had caused the initial ruckus to stop the auction. Still, it had been worth a shot to try sneaking away, only to feel Greg's heavy hand on her shoulder. "Not so fast. You aren't in trouble; just come with me for a bit." He seemed earnest enough, but she was still apprehensive. However, after glancing over her shoulder and seeing all the volunteers being rounded up for interrogation, Meghan cornered between two others and unable to escape, she felt a shot of confidence. And why not? He was the prince, after all. She did, however, keep her scarf hitched up just in case.

She followed Greg through a series of corridors, faintly hearing the bodyguard and Holmes' brother clambering along behind them. Next thing she knew she was being seated in a small impersonal room two floors up, Greg's eyes watching her carefully. "John has medical training," he said. "I'm going to have him wrap your ribs again before you go; whoever did it last time is rubbish." She couldn't help quirking a smile at that; Marie never was the best nurse. It made sense, seeing as the elder was far more frequently the one being beaten after her many attempts at escape while Cindy tended her. She was still uncomfortable with that bodyguard bloke seeing her naked, though.

"He's very professional," Greg assured her as though capable of reading her thoughts. "Wait here. Please. I'm only trying to help." At the frankly pathetic look on his face Cindy nodded, idly unbuttoning her jacket after he left the room. Why was he so interested in her? It made sense that he wanted information; but he had no need to help her. Sure, the binding on her ribs was shoddy, but it was good enough to tide her over. And when he'd seen the bracelet circling her ankle, Cindy thought he'd been on the verge of violence.

After a few minutes' quiet conversation outside - punctuated by Sherlock Holmes' continued insistence that he'd been _right, dammit!_ - the bodyguard, John, poked his head inside. "'Lo," he smiled politely before the rest of him followed his head in. "Greg tells me you've some broken ribs. Mind if I have a look?"

Even if he was too young to be a doctor yet, he was very professional and had excellent bedside manner - though Cindy couldn't really compare it to anything else, as she had no recollections of ever seeing a doctor before. He very carefully helped her out of her shirt and the loose bindings, only gaped briefly at the ugly purple bruises marring her flesh, and wrapped her up again with clean bandages, testing if she could breathe alright. Then he supplied her with a small white pill, which she swallowed dry.

"D'you mind if I take a blood sample while you're sleeping?"

Alarms went off in her head even as a wave of warm contentment rolled over her, eyelids becoming heavy. "Wait," she protested, voice slurring already. "I can't go t'sleep, need t'go home."

"It's not very strong," replied John. "Just enough to get you to relax a bit, I promise. You'll be home in no time. Now, I'm just going to take a little bit of blood; here comes the pinch..."

She was barely aware of the needle slipping into the crook of her elbow before she was asleep, anger a vague undertone to blissful calm.

When Cindy woke up she was on a sofa in a small but posh flat, uncertain of how much time had passed and very, very angry. She sat up, ribs uncomfortable but not painful, and swung her legs over the edge of the sofa, looking around. It was obviously a bachelor's place, going by the clutter and magazines and abandoned beer cans. Somewhere behind her she could hear a kettle's whistle being cut off.

"Oh, good, you're up. How d'you take your tea?" asked Greg, breezing out of the kitchen with a mug in each hand. Cindy gaped at him; he cringed. "You're upset."

"No shit," she spat back, getting up to stride as far across the room from him as possible. "You _drugged_ me, you twat!"

He grimaced even further. "Technically, John was the one who did that. And it was a very light sedative; you've only been out half an hour. John said your body needed the rest." Biting his lip, he offered one of the mugs, though still kept a fair amount of distance between them.

Cindy would have ignored the offering if her throat wasn't so dry. "Didn't put anything in it, did you?" she asked before taking it and assuming a new seat, avoiding the sofa.

Chuckling self-consciously, Greg shook his head and sat where her knees had been curled on the sofa minutes earlier. "No. And listen, I am sorry about that. Really. It won't happen again. You had me worried, though." He pointed around his mug with mock-disapproval on his face. "I thought you were going to faint regardless."

Immediately she knew what he was talking about, her little panic-attack before they'd gone into the side room. Holding herself together was never a problem, not once, but then that man, that Irishman with the soft voice and black eyes, had sauntered her way and leaned in close and whispered, _I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours, my pretty bird. Won't you tell me your name?_ The feel of his hand on the bottom of her chin as she hesitated and faltered at the last moment. _That's right. You don't know, do you? Not really._ How his eyes had burned into hers like black coals, free hand closing coarsely around her elbow.

_Don't try to play with me, little Sally. I don't play nice._

He'd given her a shake, but she'd hardly noticed with the roar of blood pumping through her ears. Then had come the epiphany, the gritty realization. It was rather like when one puts together a complicated jigsaw puzzle, reaching the point where thongs finally get easy, and all the little pieces slot into place so perfectly and so quickly it feels as though the puzzle was made just for those hands putting it together. The faded stuffed frog, that had seemed vaguely familiar upon first glance, was like an extension of her arm. The names Sally, August, and Martha Donovan all came as second nature. A year of terror and drugs being pumped into her every few hours in that dank old cellar rushed over her until she couldn't breathe.

A murmured conversation overheard during her months of captivity..._the Moriarty boys_...

"I had thought so too," she muttered before sipping her tea. Then, in an attempt to turn her mind away from he confusion, asked, "Why are you doing all this?"

After only a moment's thought Greg shrugged. "I'm just trying to be helpful," he said, his tone so mild it made Cindy hate him.

She had to put her mug down to keep from throwing it. "You think this is some sort of kid's storybook, and the 'happily ever after' has your name on it? You're such a good guy you just feel like saving me? Well guess what? _I'm not your damsel, and I don't need your help._"

"I know you don't _need_ it," replied Greg just as calm as before. "It's obvious that you've been looking out for yourself for a long time; god forbid I try and get in the way of that. But it never hurts to see if maybe you _want_ it."

Cindy knew she was gaping, really she did, but seemed powerless to stop. She'd never thought of it that way before, not once considered that Greg was intruding because he thought she wanted him to. He suddenly seemed very young...and so did she; a grim reminder that she hadn't even seen 20 years yet.

"I...hadn't considered that."

A slow, heady smile crept over the prince's face as he regarded her across the room.

-

"What have you heard?" asked Mycroft that night, as Anthea - named Persephone for the evening - pressed ice to Cindy's black eye to prevent swelling. Meghan had avoided arrest, but that hadn't made her any less frustrated that her first job was being thwarted every step of the way. Luckily all she'd done was punch Cindy, knowing it would be a messy affair if the younger woman collapsed a lung and died on her.

"Moriarty," she breathed through shivers in the cold night air. "The Moriarty boys."

Mycroft nodded solemnly, not even appearing surprised. "Professor James Moriarty, Senior, was one of the ringleaders of a child smuggling ring many years ago. One of his sons, James the second, was killed during his apprehension. A most unfortunate accident. His second son's records have vanished from all databases. Naturally a young, impressionable boy already on the verge of psychopathy would be tipped over the edge at such tragedy."

She fought a twinge of anger at his easy recollection; if he'd known all this, why was she needed?

"I had suspicions, yes, but you provided confirmation." Mycroft nodded graciously, and Persephone lifted the ice away to check her eye.

"Well, I suppose we can cover this with makeup before the ball," she said critically. "And if you're part of the waitstaff no one will much notice. That's the only way we could get you in on such short-"

"Actually," Cindy interrupted meekly. "My name's on the guest list. I'm going as...as Prince Greg's...date."

The ice pack hit the ground with a frozen '_thwack_,' as Persephone gaped openly at her. "You're his _date?_ Does he fancy you? Are you in love with him?" she eagerly asked, eyes alight with curiosity.

Smiling and shaking her head while Holmes looked on on a vaguely disapproving manner, Cindy felt a bit sorry for crushing her sister's hopes. "It's not like that. It's just a date - I mean, a dance - I mean, it's just work." She shook her head again to clear it of cobwebs, too easily distracted. "He offered his assistance, and I took it. He's got people picking my clothes and all, you won't have to worry about that; I'll just need you to deactivate my bracelet earlier than we planned." Even as she fought for casuality, she couldn't fight the hint of butterflies in her gut.

"The ball goes until 2am as it is," intervened Mycroft. "In case you were unaware, the device we've used on your bracelet loses it's effectiveness the more it's used on one particular piece of tech."

"Then I'll get my work done and leave early," Cindy acquiesced. "Promise."

Persephone smiled, only half-visible in the darkness, eyes glowing like faerie lights.


	4. Chapter 3

Once again, enormous thanks to **burninganchors**, my lovely friend and beta! Go check out her work!

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><p>Mycroft and Temperance returned at noon to deactivate her bracelet, telling her she would have until midnight to do her work before it would go off for the last her bracelet would be permanently disabled and removed by her sister and Mycroft and she would be free.<p>

As soon as they were gone Cindy started walking to the cafe where she would meet Greg, wearing the sunglasses left from yesterday in a sad attempt to cover up her black eye. Luckily this would be a masked affair tonight, a call-back to the old days. Greg wasn't happy to see her worsened state but didn't comment on it, instead buying them coffees and situating himself so his body blocked her face from the pap's cameras.

"Some bit of you will still be in the evening tabloids," grimaced Greg apologetically. She made sure to keep her head ducked low when they left while the prince wrapped his suit jacket around her for extra coverage, moaning apologies all the way.

"It's fine," she told him as they found shelter at last in the form of a nondescript palace car.

Greg stared petulantly out the window. "No, it's not, it's rubbish; this is why I've been single so long. I'm so sorry."

On impulse, she reached across the plush leather seat and closed her hand around his. "Greg, it's fine." He smiled uncertainly. "I'm probably going to end up all over the papers in a few days anyway, right?" She had, in a strange fit of trust, told the prince of her suspicions, but not of the Moriarty man who had forced the pieces together.

There was just something about him that she was starting to believe in.

His hand turned over and squeezed back. "Right."

"You want _me_...to wear _this?_" she asked, trying to keep the apprehension from her voice as she eyed the shining dark silver gown hung on the rack before her.

Grinning nervously, Greg's stylist Ianto reached around her and tugged a wrinkle out of place. "It compliments your skin tone nicely?" he meekly offered. "Besides, this is the only one we had ready that will cover up the, ah, bindings. Which unfortunately do _nothing_for your bust." He frowned so dejectedly that Cindy couldn't help but laugh and grin comfortingly at him. It was tasteful enough, anyway, long and with a fine thin collar to make it appear sleeveless but prevent slippage. She even accepted the ridiculous silver shoes, only because they had kitten-heels and were nothing ridiculously flashy.

There wasn't much to be done for her hair, sadly, as it was so curly to begin with, but Ianto was nothing if not enthusiastic. He downright attacked Cindy's hair with a blow-dryer, straight iron, and curling iron, which seemed counter-productive but actually worked rather well. It was possibly the oddest thing in the world to see her hair straight (and so long!), but that only lasted so long before it was being returned to bigger, looser curls.

She'd never had the chance to look pretty before. She hadn't known she was capable.

Ianto pulled her hair back behind her ears, then fastened her mask - white with matching silver around the edges and eyes - gently in place before helping her into her dress. There would be a fancy dinner before the ball itself, but people were supposed to dress for the dance regardless.

As soon as she was safely buttoned and zipped into the endless garment, she was bade to sit in the drawing room of the palace to wait for Greg. On the way she met John, looking alarmingly handsome in his Army dress uniform. Despite her hard feelings about the sleeping pills the day before, Cindy had never felt so good so soon after one of Meghan's tantrums, and had to admit her brief descent into completely catatonic floppy limpness had helped.

"That really you in there?" he teased with a quirk of his eyebrows, pretending to attempt peering into the eyes of her mask. His own was one of red and white to match his uniform, though it was obvious that he felt just as silly as Cindy in the thing.

She spread her arms in a wide shrug. "It's me. How do I...I mean...?" She swallowed thickly and wrung her hands.

John smiled. "You look beautiful, Sally."

They paused as each seemed to realize what he'd just said. "Greg told you?"

"I forced it out of him," amended John, turning red around the ears. "Actually I tortured him. Did you know hanging people by their ankles-?"

"It's okay," she cut him off; he seemed relieved. "I know you suspected anyway - why else take my blood?"

He quirked an embarrassed smile. "Actually, that was Sherlock's idea. Concrete evidence and all that."

A brief flash of consternation wrapped around her - the younger Holmes had, of course, managed to pick apart most of the details about not only her real reason to be at the auction ("Same reason I am, though you'll have less success.") but the pertinent details of her living situation ("Not raised by family, a foster family; they abuse you on a regular basis yet you never call them on it.") in a matter of moments - but she quickly dismissed it. If John trusted him, and Greg trusted John, and she for some reason trusted Greg, then maybe he was alright really, really deep down.

"I'll announce you," John insisted with a mischievous grin, edging through the door and closing it before she could follow. He cleared his throat noisily, and within the room Cindy could hear Greg laugh; again, the unnecessary butterflies made themselves known in her gut. "Sire, your date for the evening has arrived."

"She's been here all day, you prat," laughed Greg. The amused shine was still in his eye when John swung the door open and Cindy saw him for the first time since they separated to get dressed. He looked so overwhelmingly handsome in something that, on any other man, would seem perfectly ordinary, that Cindy couldn't help but wonder if she wasn't falling just the smallest bit in love with him.

The look that spread across his face at the sight of her seemed to signify he was thinking the same thing.

The ballroom was crowded, to say the least, lit up bright and deafening with live music and seeming to burst with so many different colors crammed into one place. After straightening Greg's mask (royal blue and white to match his suit) and warning him not to fuss with it, Cindy took his arm and let him lead her in. The room applauded at the sight of their prince, even more rousing than the greeting for the King and Queen minutes before - where his parents were fair and taciturn leaders, Greg was youthful and likable by damn near everyone, it seemed.

They made the rounds that Greg moaned were necessary for him to make among the usual dignitaries, then quietly excused themselves to search out Moriarty and his bomb. It was unclear whether or not the man himself was there, but as Sherlock and Mycroft both insisted, he had eyes everywhere doing the dirty work. It was most likely that the bomb would be either outside along the foundations of the building or somewhere in a side room, or maybe even in the kitchen where trays and carts were being rolled out all the time.

"Outside first?"

"Yeah, get that over with before it gets too cold."

"Mm."

When they were nearly ten feet from the garden door, an older woman in a mauve dress peeked her head in the corridor from the ballroom and called out, "_Yoohoo!_Greg, love, I want to meet your young lady!"

"Oh, God, sorry," Greg muttered under his breath before halting and turning them around. "Hullo, Mum. This is Cindy. Cindy, this is my, er, stepmother. Her Royal Highness, Queen Martha Hudson-Lestrade." Rubbing the back of his head, Greg averted his eyes like a teenager and blushed.

Cindy felt as though she'd just been shoved out onto a stage with a spotlight shining in her face and a crowd of thousands waiting for her to recite a soliloquy she'd never bothered learning. Rather than saying how nice it was to meet the matron of their nation, all she could think to blurt out was, "My mum's name is Martha, too."

The old woman smiled and crowed happily, a complete opposite of the woman she was before the public. "How lovely, dear! Martha is a very popular name among people my age, though I suppose your mother's a bit younger than me! Got started late, I did; actually, I was married once before I met dear Geoff! For almost twenty years, but then he went to Death Row and, well, that was that. What about you, love? Where are you from? I'd like to hear all about this mysterious young lady our Greg's been pining after for so long!"

Cindy peered at Greg from the corner of her eye; he winced and his blush darkened.

"Mum, lovely as it would be to have a nice long chat, Cindy and I were actually busy," he muttered with one hand pressed to his eyes.

"Oh, of course, love!" replied the queen instantly, waving her hands and retreating back toward the ballroom. "Don't let me get in the way of young love!" Greg groaned quietly and brought his other hand up to his face as well. "But before that - unless it's an emergency, of course, dears, then get on with it! - make sure you say hello to the DCI and his family, won't you? Kisses, darling!"

"Kisses, Mum."

Just when they thought they were safe, they heard, "And be sure to use protection! I'm your stepmother, not your babysitter, dear!"

The moment the door closed, Cindy burst into uncontrollable cackles while Greg banged his head against the wall. "Oh, that is _embarrassing!_" she laughed, more amused than she could ever remember being.

"Shut up!" groaned Greg. "But she was right, I ought to go say hello before we do this. Do you want to wait here for me?"

At first Cindy furrowed her brow, wondering why he would think she wanted or needed to wait. "No, I'll come along; it's fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, let's go."

They walked with a foot of space between them, Cindy playing with her clutch purse, until Greg tentatively reached across and took her hand. For appearances' sake, of course. Still, she felt heat creep across her collar and neck as they reentered the chaos of the ballroom. Greg hummed along with the music as they picked their way through the dancing couples and under flashing lights until they reached a cluster of numbered tables. The lower numbers were all assigned for fellow royalty who had deigned to appear, but table seven seated a small family that made Cindy's heart wrench. Neither Greg nor his stepmother had actually mentioned the name of the DCI's family, and she hadn't been thinking straight.

Her first sight of her mother and father in 14 years was of them smiling. Leaning in toward one another, hands clasped loosely atop the pristine white tablecloth, Cindy couldn't have wished for a better reunion. But of course, this was hardly the time for such a thing, and she schooled herself into a neutral expression. Her brothers were so handsome it made her want to cry.

As they approached, her father looked up and beamed; Cindy almost smiled back before realizing it was meant for Greg and not her. "Greg, m'boy!" he boomed, uncaring of making those at surrounding tables uncomfortable. "Who is that beautiful girl on your arm? I thought you'd joined a monastery at this point!" Even as he said it he was clambering to his feet, displaying an impressive over-6-foot height that Cindy had completely forgotten, and embracing Greg like a son.

"This is Detective Chief Inspector August Donovan," Greg told Cindy with a smile overflowing with sympathy, "his beautiful wife Martha, and their strapping sons, Scott and Simon." Drawing away from August, Greg instead moved to her side and wrapped an arm around her waist, the perfect image of a doting boyfriend. "This is my-my date, Cindy."

August smiled fondly at their stiff affection and shook Cindy's hand; it was warm and rough. "I've heard a lot about you," she forced out, hoping she sounded normal.

"Nothing bad, I hope?" he grinned, and they all laughed, and it was just so normal. He seemed so happy to be there with his wife and sons, at a benefit memorializing his lost daughter...who he didn't even seem to miss. None of them did, really, though there were lines around her mother's eyes that seemed too deep for her age, and her brothers kept exchanging pointed looks with one another. Scott was doodling on a napkin, and Simon had a book on his lap under the table.

As Greg and August talked, Cindy edged around the table to see what Scott was drawing - a strange sort of tentacle monster and armor-clad super-woman fighting it with a sword. "That's really good," she told him quietly.

Scott blushed. "Thanks."

"Are you like a cartoonist?"

"Illustrator," Simon corrected her without looking up from his book. "He illustrates comic books. But that's for one he's writing himself."

"Shut _up!_" whispered Scott, blushing furiously, and Cindy grinned.

She turned then to Simon. "What do you do, then?"

The older boy - well, man, he had to be at least 26 - shifted in his seat. "I'm still in uni, getting my teaching degree."

"Brilliant! Not gonna be a copper like your dad, then?"

Both sons snorted. "_That's_likely," muttered Scott.

"I'd rather teach children not to do bad things than clean up the mess left by adults who never learned," retorted Simon darkly. He pushed his glasses further up on his long nose and finally looked up at her with hazel-eyed scrutiny. "Why d'you care? Just because our sister's dead you think we're going to drop everything to get revenge, like some stupid action film?"

"Well, n-"

"Looking for Sally's destroyed our father's life, even if he did get promoted to DCI," he continued in a mercilessly flat tone. "He's living in a fantasy world where he thinks he's going to find Sally at any moment, alive and well, when the reality is that after 24 hours the chances of finding a missing child alive plummet to nearly zero. It's been 15 years; her bones are lying at the bottom of the Thames or under four feet of topsoil."

To hear her brother speak so emotionlessly of his own sister - of _her_, though he didn't know it - made Cindy's skin crawl. But she couldn't blame him for coping in his own way. She swallowed roughly and shrugged with an unsteady smile. "Well. There's always hope."

Simon rolled his eyes and went back to his book, Scott had become absorbed in his drawing again the moment his brother got worked up, and Martha was smiling gratefully at her, eyes shining.

Greg and August discussed a few menial topics, not showing the slightest sign of awkwardness or boredom, for several minutes before he and Cindy were able to make their escape. She waved goodbye to her family, knowing that she would see them all again fairly soon, and if she leaned a bit more on Greg than before he didn't say a word until they were outside.

She looked up from a suspicious clump of rosebushes to see him offering his jacket. "You're shaking." Raising her hands out for the garment, she saw that he was right, even if she didn't feel it at all. "Are you okay, Cindy?"

"Fine," she said, blanching, tugging the jacket tight around herself before continuing the search through the garden. Her second name had never entirely sat well with her before, the unnaturalness of knowing it wasn't really hers, but now it seemed vile and poisonous in the deep back of her throat and made her clench her jaw to keep from being ill.

They pressed on searching fruitlessly for five minutes before, about to give up, Greg grabbed her arm. "Hear that?" he whispered, and Cindy strained her ears listening to the rustling of grass and crunching of fallen leaves. Someone was walking toward them, trying very hard to keep quiet, obviously already knowing someone else was there.

_What do we do?_she whispered silently.

Greg nervously wetted his lips. _Follow my lead,_ he replied. _Sorry._He coiled a hand round the back of her neck, tilted her jaw slightly upward, and kissed her.

Sensation exploded in Cindy's gut, not only from the kiss itself but the fact that this was her very first and it was with the crown prince while searching for bombs in a cluster of rosebushes. She hadn't thought kissing would be so wet, though it was a perfectly sound assumption to make. Her lips felt enormous and were very clumsy, but Greg merely guided them to fit better and let out a theatrical moan. She did the same, though admittedly she was only half-acting as a million new sensations and feelings arose to be cataloged and examined. Their thick heavy masks clashed together and she actually giggled - her!

A blinding white flash and victorious laugh snapped them out of their act with horror; the pap snapped two more pictures as they tore apart, spun on his heel, and ran.

"Who the hell let you in?" shouted Greg after him, tugging at the collar of his shirt. He seemed a bit breathless and red under his mask; Cindy could sympathize.

Moving his hands to his hips, Greg shook his head and turned back to face her. "Well, we just dug ourselves a hole, didn't we? Sorry about that."

After a moment, his breathless chagrin cracked apart into a smile, and then they were giggling like children against the wall of the palace, considerably closer than they'd been before - both figuratively and literally.

A shadow passed over the nearby window and Cindy instinctively flinched, too many memories of Papa Jeff or Meghan's looming forms making her paranoid. Greg looked up for the source and dropped himself and Cindy into a low crouch in the shadows.

Moriarty and another man, both in fine-cut black suits, were sequestered against the window, talking quietly into their champagne flutes. No one looked twice at them. The man's bearing reminded Cindy in an odd way of John Watson, but taller and meaner-looking, like the boy in the schoolyard who slowly stomped the guts out of toads for fun. Really he looked nothing like John at all, it was just the militaristic stance and shabby dress uniform that had her thrown.

"That's them," she whispered, "that's Moriarty and his lackey."

The pair nodded at one another before separating, Moriarty vanishing in the crowd while the soldier moved deliberately toward the kitchen.

"Right, let's split up," decided Greg. "I'll take Moriarty, you take the soldier?"

She nodded, and they set off. Through masses of people Cindy weaved and bobbed, keeping her eyes on the splash of red lapels of the soldier's jacket to trace him. He drifted soundlessly through the crowd, never stopping or straying in his path to the kitchen. Cindy had to bunch her wide skirt in one hand to avoid tripping herself and others up, grimacing when she saw the mud and grass stains on it that came from kneeling and snogging in the shrubbery.

The soldier walked effortlessly through the doors to the kitchen but veered left before he actually made it fully inside. He was less conspicuous in his dark suit, but Cindy would be noticed in an instant with that bloody silver dress of hers. Peering down the wall, she saw another small door a fair space to the left, where servers were rolling trays of hors-d'oeuvres out into the ballroom. Three servers left, and then out rolled the soldier with his cart, the only sign of something amiss being a single wire trailing from under the tablecloth.

She practically sprinted across the distance to him, standing deliberately in the way of his cart only because she didn't know what else to do to stop him. Dark eyes narrowed, and he tried to swerve around her, but Cindy grasped the opposite push-handle and refused to let him move.

"Don't cause a scene, love," purred the soldier, completely unconcerned with being confronted by a skinny 19-year-old with broken ribs.

"Then I suggest you turn this cart around or I damn sure will."

They stared silently at one another for several seconds before, with no outward distress, the soldier walked slowly backwards through the door once again, Cindy still holding the handle on the other side. The door closed behind them, and the sound of the ballroom was muffled.

Cindy felt like she was underwater, trapped in a single moment lasting for decades as the salty spray filled her lungs, but not her eyes. They were glued to the soldier's, in deadlock.

Then he pulled out a gun.

Terror caused a spiraling whirlpool under the depths and sent her careening. She had faced pain, and fright, and hunger, but she couldn't imagine the torture of being shot. Her hands started to shake but she didn't let go of the cart. She was going to die. In a matter of moments, her brains would be scattered across the walls. There would be no more pain, no more fright, no more hunger. Just the dark and quiet. It made her oddly calm.

"Go ahead, shoot me," she said, voice shaking like never before. "I know what a silencer looks like, and you seem to have forgotten yours. The moment you kill me, everyone will know you're here, and then where will you be?"

The soldier chuckled to himself, releasing his other hand around the cart handle to reach into his pocket. "Of course I have a silencer, you stupid girl," he said, not once breaking eye contact as he began fastening it to the barrel of his gun. "If you'd like me to use it, I'll use it, but it won't matter. Everyone here will be pink mist by the end of the evening regardless." He twisted it on slowly, obviously savoring the ability to drag the moment out.

Cindy closed her eyes so she wouldn't see the moment of her death coming. She heard a chamber loading and braced herself.

The soldier sighed. "Well, that's just not_ fair_."

Puzzled, Cindy opened her eyes just in time to see the soldier drop his gun, John Watson holding an identical one to his temple. Young though he was, John's hand didn't falter and his face showed no sign of doubt.

"Back away from the bomb and the girl," the shorter man demanded, "or I _will_kill you." The soldier pursed his lips but did as he was told, obviously put out. John's eyes went to Cindy. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

He nodded. "Good. Now have a seat, Sebastian; the authorities are on their way."

The soldier (apparently named Sebastian) looked theatrically around with his hands held aloft, then shrugged. "And where would you like me to sit if there are no chairs?"

"Try the floor, I hear it's much more comfortable than a bullet in your eye socket."

"Fine, fine, touchy..."

The moment Sebastian's arse hit the tile there were uniformed guards rushing into the tiny room, forcing him into handcuffs and carefully assessing the bomb. "We've got experts coming in to check this out any minute," one of the guards said to John as his fellows forced Sebastian up and out of the room. He rolled the cart out after tucking in the wire. "We'll keep it quiet like you asked, sir."

"Thank you, gentlemen."

They swept out within moments, leaving Cindy and John alone in the small room. The adrenaline suddenly crashed its way out of her veins and she fell back against the wall, wincing and breathing slowly as exhaustion laid over her like a drunken lover. John stepped cautiously to her side but made no move to touch her. "Alright?"

"Mmhmm," she hummed with her eyes closed. "I just can't believe it was that easy."

John snorted. "You call getting a gun aimed in your face 'easy'?" he asked with a breathless giggle. "Come on, let's get you something to drink. They're hushing up the scare so people don't panic."

"And did they get-?"

"Moriarty? Yep," he nodded, putting a hand on her shoulder and guiding her back into the ballroom. "Got him crawling over the front gate, trying to save his own skin. Greg's got a good rugby tackle; I taught him that when we were eight and ten."

She took a slow breath. "Right. So...it's over? I mean, the bomb's gone and Moriarty's going to jail?"

"Far as we can see. Here, have a drink, dance a bit; you've earned it."

And she somehow felt like she had. She found Greg on the edge of the dance floor, leaning across the velvet rope to speak with the conductor of the band. There were grass stains on his knees and a smear of dirt high on his cheek, but it was nothing compared to the ecstatic gleam in his eyes as he swung the rope idly between his hands. He was obviously pleading with the conductor, cajoling him, trying to convince him to do _something_. At last the conductor rolled his eyes and nodded; Greg clapped him on the back with a grin and found Cindy in the crowd within moments.

"Is this _punk?_" she asked as the band began playing anew in a disturbingly sweet melody that sounded oddly familiar. Greg laughed and put his hands on her hips and started dancing; the thrill he found from their little shared victory was infectious, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. The proximity of their bodies made dancing a warm and sticky affair, but she didn't mind the closeness. They threw off each other's masks; Greg stared agog into her unhidden face for a full minute before breaking into the widest of smiles and kissing her again.

People who had at first been avoiding it swarmed the dance floor around them, taking cues from their prince and his mysterious date that had apparently caused quite a stir. The bodies pulled in tight and swayed in time to the classical punk, couples were laughing and kissing one another, and for a while Cindy felt blessedly normal. There hadn't just been a gun in her face, and she hadn't just been digging around in a shady garden. Though, she had just been kissing in the shrubbery. That part had been rather nice. As the music winded down, she let Greg pull her in closer, until the light stubble on his chin was scratching her lips, her eyelashes tickling his cheek. There were more eyes, more cameras, but they seemed so far away now that Cindy couldn't bring herself to care.

Song flew after song, dance after dance, drink after drink, until Cindy felt pleasantly heavy and tired and perfectly content to drape herself around Greg's neck and shut out the whole wide world. This had to be what love felt like, this sensation of complete safety and belonging and not caring the smallest bit for what others might say.

"It would be so easy to fall in love with you, Cindy," Greg whispered. "Or Sally?" His lips curved into a smile against the shell of her ear. "Does it matter?"

She pulled herself in closer around him. "I'm the same person no matter what you call me. Though I think I'll go back to Sally after all this is over." When she was with her family again, when she had a chance at a somewhat ordinary life. Bringing up her hand, she cupped the back of his head and played with the short, soft hairs. It would be very easy to fall in love with him, too.

They sat down for a moment, and Cindy borrowed a pen from Greg and wrote a short note on a stray napkin. He tucked it into his pocket for safekeeping before they turned to go back to the dance floor, too giddy to stop celebrating. It had almost been too easy.

"Do you hear something?" asked Greg after a moment. Puzzled, Cindy strained her ears and heard what he was hearing.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

The clock tower started chiming in the midnight hour as Cindy's bracelet went off, and terror paralyzed her. Where had the hours gone? She pulled up the edge of her skirt to confirm that the red light on the bracelet was blinking rapidly; Greg went white.

"That's your-!"

"Yeah."

She looked around the ballroom and surely enough, on the other end of the room near the door to the rest of the palace, there was Papa Jeff in a waiter's uniform and fiddling with his watch. He looked livid, but also puzzled. Of course - he used the GPS in the watch and their bracelets to find them when they ran; it would be reading off that she was right on top of him.

Greg's hand touched her elbow. "Ci-...Sally?"

To hear her name, her real name, from his lips was not enough to calm her. "I need to go. I need to go now, and quickly."

"I'll get you out the back gate and call a car."

With his hand on the small of her back they walked calmly and purposefully to the back of the room, stopping only once when Papa Jeff was passing too near. They sat abruptly at the table with her parents and brothers, ducking their heads and avoiding questions until after Papa Jeff had passed. Martha and Scott were staring at her with boggling eyes while Simon and August tried to figure out what was going on.

"You," breathed Martha, staring at her unmasked face for the first time. "You look so..."

Sally reached across the table and closed one hand over her mother's, only briefly, before pulling the napkin from Greg's pocket and laying it on the table. "I know. And there's reason for it. I'll explain it all in time, I swear, but now I've got to-"

"Sally, he's coming this way again; he knows," Greg muttered, pulling them to their feet. Hand-in-hand they fled, only vaguely hearing her father half-shout, "Did he call her _Sally?_" as they made a break for it.

A wall of solid cold air hit them in the back garden and Sally swore under her breath but kept them running. Greg fumbled to get his jacket around her shoulders even as they dove into the elaborately-arranged hedgerows. "It's not a maze," he instantly dismissed. "Looks like one, acts like one, but it isn't one."

The farther they got from the palace, the quieter their little globe of space became, the eerier and darker the world seemed to be. Sally pulled Greg's jacket tight once more and tried not to gasp when she heard several pairs of footsteps following them into the garden. Greg pulled out his phone and was dialing with shaking fingers.

"Hey, it's me. I need a car round back. No, the far back. All the way back, you bloody-! Yeah, thanks. Is John near you? _Where?_Right." He rung off and sighed noisily through his nose before dialing again. "John, stop snogging your boyfriend! We have a potentially dangerous situation in the back-"

Sally turned her head just in time to see Papa Jeff diving at them between rows of hedges and let out a shout. The sound of tearing fabric filled the air, and she felt a draft against her leg as she and Greg started sprinting for the back of the garden, twisting their way through the sculpted paths.

"_John, hurry up!_" Greg shouted into the mobile before ringing off and dropping it rather than risking the loss of speed if he tried to find his pockets in the dark. Sally could barely keep up with his longer legs, not with the paracetamol she'd taken wearing off and the running doing a number on her bruised ribs. Her breath came in ragged gasps even as her small heels sank into the soft soil beneath them, and after sinking in three times her ankle twisted and she fell, accidentally dragging Greg down by the hand with her.

Without wasting a moment Greg was pulling them against the hedgerows, snug into the shadows to pause for breath. "I think we lost him for the time being," he whispered just moments before two sets of running footsteps started pounding against the ground, coming at them quickly. Sally got up and pulled an iron outdoor candlestick from the ground, preparing herself, and the moment the dark shapes turned the corner she swung.

Two pairs of hands too young to belong to Papa Jeff grabbed the candlestick and stopped its path. "What the bloody hell?" snapped John. "Are you trying to kill us?"

The feeble weapon fell from her shaking hands, and Sally covered her face. "Sorry. Sorry, I thought..." She sucked in a lungful of icy air and held it for longer than was advisable before letting it out.

"There's someone after her; we thought you were him," explained Greg while she pulled herself together. "John, you take Sally to the back gate and be sure she gets on her way wherever she needs to go. I'll go with Sherlock; give me your jacket so we can try to trick this guy into thinking I'm you, and we'll distract him. Oh, here, keep your gun."

If they were in daylight and no danger, Sally might have laughed at how short John's sleeves were on Greg, but instead felt like crying. "Will I ever see you again?" she asked. Sherlock rolled his eyes and looked away as Greg smiled.

"Wild horses couldn't keep me away."

She forced a smile and John led her away while Sherlock's voice echoed behind them going in another direction, lecturing on how the height difference between Greg and John made switching pointlessly obvious. John laughed humorlessly and they soldiered on toward the back gate. Even in the dark Sally could see how badly mussed John's hair was and the half-tucked state of his shirt, and felt sorry for ruining what was probably a lovely evening for him. Well, it had been a lovely evening for her, too. She'd had the most wonderful time.

"Where's the car taking you?" asked John as they made it free of the hedgerows and the gate entered their sights.

She shook her head. "I don't know. I can't go home now he knows I've left. I- _John!_"

A shadow streaked out from the labyrinth with two candlesticks in one hand and a gun in the other; before John could free his weapon from his waistband the candlestick was falling over the crown of his head and he was bleeding on the ground with the pointed end of the other candlestick stabbed through his shoulder, pinning him to the ground like a butterfly on a mat. Papa Jeff downright snarled as he turned on her next, swinging the candlestick as she tried to run for the car in vain. All he had to do was stomp on the trailing bit of her skirt and she was falling again on her twisted ankle.

"I put _weeks_ into making sure this would go perfectly, and you _ruined it!_" he shouted, slamming the iron down onto her back and relishing her scream of agony. "_You filthy - no good - whore!_"

There was no pain like that of the iron rod's blows raining down on her. Sally almost would have preferred being shot, if only because she would have died straight out. But Papa Jeff just kept hitting her no matter if she tried to get away or even stopped fighting at all, his fury driving him to new heights of violence.

"You think the prince will save you if you suck his prick, is that it?" spat Papa Jeff next, throwing the candlestick away and looming over her with disgust in every line of his face. "You think you can get away? No. _I will never let you go._" With his free hand he wrenched Sally to her feet, forcing her to stand even as her knees buckled with pain, then pressed the barrel of his gun into her back. "The fairy tale's over, Cindy. Time to go back to the real world."


	5. Chapter 4

Martha Donovan tried not to stare as Greg and his date - Sandra or Sarah or something like that - dropped into the seats opposite her and Scott, but it was a battle she and her elder son were destined to lose. It wasn't just the faint, repetitive beeping coming from the vicinity of her girl's lower half. That girl, that young woman, even as she ducked her head and tried to hide...there was no mistaking it. She looked exactly like she had been pulled out of a photograph of Martha as a girl. She and Greg were breathless and worried, glancing around the ballroom over their shoulders as though worried they were being followed.

"Greg, my boy, what's going on?" asked August, and the young prince waved him off.

The girl turned to Greg, biting her lip, and oh, God, this couldn't be a coincidence. It was like looking at a ghost. She remembered looking through photographs in the weeks after her Sally disappeared, finding a few of herself as a toddler. They all had marveled over how the pictures of baby Martha and Sally looked like they could be the same child. And now, nearing the 15-year junction of her daughter's disappearance, this girl draped in silver and shedding glitter all over the table showed up looking like something hunted.

She couldn't help the breathless sigh that escaped her lips, the murmured, "You...you look so..." She choked on her words as the girl reached out and covered Martha's hand with hers.

"I know," she replied cryptically, pulling a folded napkin from the prince's jacket pocket and slipping it under Martha's hand. "And there's reason for it. I'll explain it all in time, I swear, but now I've got to-"

"Sally, he's coming this way again; he knows," Greg muttered, pulling them to their feet. Hand-in-hand they fled as Martha's family reeled. Did they really just hear...?

August stood up and half-shouted, "Did he call her _Sally?_" with a shaking voice.

Simon looked like he was going to be sick. "She looks just like Mum."

Another man, part of the waitstaff, discreetly slipped out the door after Greg and his date, but did not go unseen by the family at table number seven. With trembling fingers Martha opened up the napkin that had been delivered to her by that girl who looked like Sally and read:

_"Someday I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, let there be no regrets, no tears, and no anxieties."_  
><em>I shall see you all very soon.<em>  
><em>All my love,<em>  
><em>Sally<em>

With tears in her eyes, Martha relayed the note to her husband, who went even paler than before and took off running after the pair without so much as a moment's hesitation. Scott and Simon, and then Martha herself, were hot on his heels, causing quite the stir among the ballgoers. Martha's heart was beating probably a thousand miles a minute with the terrified elation she felt. Her daughter was alive. Her daughter was _alive_, and being hunted down probably by the same man who had taken her away in the first place. How long had she been trying to escape whatever captivity had kept her away for nearly 15 years? How hard had she been fighting or her freedom?

They followed the sounds of half-shouts and staggering footsteps through the labyrinthine hedgerows, shivering in the cold and rushes of adrenaline as they heard a distinctively feminine scream far off from them.

"_No! No, please, don't hurt him!_" Sally cried, and then screamed again to accompany the sound of a blunt object hitting pliant flesh.

"_I will never let you go._"

With a vicious roar of pent-up anger and grief, August shoved his way through the hedgerow just in time to see the man in the waiter's coat leading his daughter to a cab with its light turned out, forcing her to remain standing even though it was an obvious struggle. The prince's friend and bodyguard, John, was crumpled and bleeding from a head-wound in the grass, pinned to the ground with an iron candlestick. With August's silent instruction Simon knelt at the soldier's side to see if he was still alive.

"Stop!" August shouted at the kidnapper. "I'm with Scotland Yard!"

Easy as anything the man turned around, only then baring his gun to aim it threateningly at him. Sally let out a sob that sounded like the word, "_Daddy!_" Then the man pressed the barrel of his gun to her head.

"Back away, or the girl dies," the man said calmly.

August didn't know what else to do that could help other than stepping back, nearly tripping over John's listless form as he did so. Sally was dragged to the cab and it drove off with a screeching of tires, too fast to catch the plate numbers that probably weren't even registered in the city. Before the sound of the cab's engine had vanished August was pulling out his mobile phone and calling the Yard to track down every cabbie in London, knowing too well that it could take months, even years, to find them all and identify the man, if he even were a cabbie at all.

There was nothing that could be done. Sally was gone, dangled before their eyes like a vision from heaven only to be snatched away yet again. Martha was sobbing while Scott tried to comfort her. Simon, after checking over the soldier, was sitting in the dewy grass with a numb expression on his face, glasses slipping down his nose.

"I can't believe I said all those things to her," was his only explanation for his horrible shock.

Minutes later, after August had called for an ambulance for the young soldier, Greg and a tall young man who August had seen hanging around the Yard from time to time came bursting from the path. Greg was wearing an ill-fitted army jacket, and practically tore it from his shoulders when he saw John pinned to the ground. The tall, hawk-like young man swooped upon the fallen soldier, checking his pulse and trying to wake him up with murmured admonitions and soft kisses pressed to his brow.

"Where's Sally?" asked Greg breathlessly, draping the jacket over John's prone form. When August failed to answer a look of horror spread across his face. "August, where is she? What happened?"

As calmly as he could, August explained what he had seen transpire with the cab and the gun and Sally's cries of terror and pain. When he said which way the cab went, Greg's entire body jerked in that direction, as though he longed for nothing more than to follow its path.

"We have to find her."

"How?" Martha sobbed. "He's had her hidden away for fifteen years. What could possibly make it easier to find her now? It's hopeless!"

But Greg wasn't listening to her. He looked downright inspired as he pulled a slip of paper from his sock and held it aloft. Printed on one side were eight meticulously-written numbers: 4-75-9374-6.

"It's the ID number on the bracelet that bastard's been using to keep her locked up," the young prince explained. "I wrote it down earlier. Think the Yard would be able to trace it?"

August took the paper in numb fingers and nodded. They were getting their girl back. 

* * *

><p>Some part of Sally had been expecting Papa Jeff to take her home and kill her straight off. Maybe with one of the kitchen knives, quick and messy; or perhaps forcing bleach down her throat, painful and quiet. Some part of her had even hoped for him to, deep down. It was better than the torturous pain that shot through her limbs like electric volts with every move. It was better than knowing Papa Jeff had locked the shed cellar door behind her with no intentions of ever opening it again. It was better then the nauseous hunger that curled through her stomach after a few hours, better than shivering in the dark, better than knowing she had raised her family's hopes only for them to be dashed anew, better than the guilt Greg would likely feel not only for this but for John's injury.<p>

Yes, Sally would have preferred to die than think on that. But instead she was condemned to live, to lie at the bottom of the cellar that had been turned to a storage room years ago, rusty nails digging into her spine and splinters beneath her fingernails. It hurt too much to move, so she would move no more. There was blood caked and drying on the floor beneath her, the remains of her gown were a tattered bloody mess, and she couldn't see from one eye; whether it was swollen shut or she'd been hit so hard that the sight had fled was a mystery.

Waves of heat rolled lazily over her, taking their time in making her shiver convulsively on the floor, and slowly the music from the night before began echoing distantly in her mind. She hummed weakly along with the wavering melody, trying to go back to the night before when things were pleasant and painless and the whole world lay before her. Trying to go back to the warm circle of Greg's arms. It would have been far too easy to love him; perhaps this was for the best after all. Love only confused people, nine times out of ten, and the rest of the time it led to heartache. Why have children if they'll only be taken away, like Sally had been? Why have a lover if they'll only meet a horrible end before their time, like John probably had?

She laughed deliriously at the phrase 'before their time.' If it wasn't their time to die, then wouldn't they not have died at all? What a lovely paradox. Marie always loved paradoxes, thought they were fascinating. She loved to sit against the bedroom wall while Meghan and Alice watched Doctor Who reruns, ear pressed tight to the drywall, twiddling her fingers and smiling as she puzzled it all out in her head. It was Marie who had given Sally the line to put on the note for her parents.

_One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, let there be no regrets, no tears, and no anxieties._

Sally regretted ever writing that stupid note.

Her mother had been sobbing as Papa Jeff dragged her away.

Simon looked on the verge of a panic attack with John dying on one side and his sister being kidnapped all over again on the other.

Life, unfortunately, didn't exactly work out as promised, no matter how hard one tried.

There was a loud humming in Sally's ears now, one that she couldn't decipher between herself or the bees that were buzzing around under her skin. She loved bees; they were like tiny puffs of summer air. The hum was so warm, so heavy and soft - it made her want to sink down, down, lower and lower into the recesses of her own head, to just relax and be at ease even as pain continued to spark and whir across her bones. It didn't hurt quite so much anymore, though. The pain was starting to lessen.

A loud bang resonated loud enough to reach her in the windowless cellar; it must have echoed through the whole neighborhood. Then there were voices shouting, faint and muffled through meters of earth and thick wooden doors at the top of the stairs. Another bang, closer this time, followed shortly by another.

"_Where is she?_" a man's voice roared up above.

Every cell in Sally's body jumped to attention and brought the dulled pain back to a blinding burn. That was August's voice, her daddy's voice, and he sounded very cross. Was it something she'd done? No. No, that wasn't right; it was something_ they'd_ done; something Papa Jeff had done. He was trying to kill her daddy. There was more shouting, more confusion. They were trying to find her, but the doors to the cellar were hidden behind the shed and covered with layers of plastic tarps and moldy leaves. She had to do something, make some noise or get to the doors, or they would never find her.

Even with every muscle and joint shrieking in protest, Sally bit back her cries and forced herself up. It felt like it took a decade to get there, but she knew that if she opened her lips and let herself start crying she would lose all fight and leave herself to die at the bottom of the cellar. She crawled blindly to the nearest wall, feeling her way in the dark, and as soon as she felt something substantially heavy used all of her will to knock it over. It crashed with a most satisfying bang on the concrete floor, and either the voices up above stilled or she went deaf.

She felt further along and knocked down something else, a rake or a shovel, and it woodenly clattered to the floor.

"..._hear that?_" a voice asked up above, much nearer now to the stairs than it had been before.

Sucking in ragged breaths as even that small amount of physical exertion sapped her, Sally stretched her fractured arms as far as she could reach and brushed against another rusty tool. It was jammed against the wall. Pulling the splintered wooden handle with all her might, Sally pulled herself into a half-seated position before it fell away. She collapsed back onto the concrete, gasping as a lance of pain shot through her side. Her vision went white, then red when she tried to move and the rusty rake she'd fallen upon scraped further against her torn open flesh.

Someone was shrieking, shouting for help and sobbing, someone far away, someone under miles of water. The salty flood was coming back like last night with Sebastian, the spray filling her eyes and ears, saturating the bloodied remains of her dress and dragging her down in moments.

Somewhere very far away, a light was shining too brightly. Sally closed her eyes against it and let the water take her away. 

* * *

><p>Jefferson Hope saw the cars pulling up and knew he had no other choice. "Meg, darling, come sit with me."<p>

His eldest daughter came sedately in and stiffened at the sight of red and blue lights flashing outside. "Dad?" she asked. Jeff shook his head; her eyes filled with tears. "Daddy?"

"I know, my love," he whispered as she curled up in his lap and started to cry. He kissed her hair, soft and fine like her cursed mother's. "Alice is at uni. She'll be safe to carry on without suspicion. It's time."

The door was kicked in as he pulled his father's revolver from the kitchen drawer. August Donovan, two constables, and four armed policemen stormed the little room.

"Where is my daughter?" asked Donovan in his deep voice.

Jeff shook his head. "You'll never see her again," he choked as Meg bit back a sob against his shoulder.

"Tell me where she is!" the DCI shouted.

Pulling the gun from under the table, Jeff pressed one last kiss to Meg's hair before he shot her. Two of the armed officers raised their weapons and all of Jeff's worries were gone. 

* * *

><p>August wiped a hand across his brow and wordlessly directed his Sergeant and Constable to search the house before calling for two ambulances. Hope was still gasping, but only for another moment before he was gone, murdered daughter falling from limp arms. What a twisted family.<p>

"No sign of her in any of the bedrooms or the cellar, sir," reported Sergeant Wallace, regret in every line of his face. "There are traces of blood in almost every room, but no b-...no sign of her, sir."

He nodded and stepped into the back garden for some air, biting his lip so hard he drew blood. What would Martha say when they still hadn't found her? When it was almost certain that Sally was dead? What would Simon and Scott do? It had taken years for them to learn to pick up their lives again without having a baby sister to blame in all their childish squabbles.

Just for his own peace, August checked the shed, but there was nothing there, not even a spot of blood to go by.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years his girl had been gone. She had been so close - so close - and now nothing.

"_Where is she?_" he screamed into the frost-bitten air, all dignity thrown into the wind, gone with Sally like a wisp of smoke.

The constabulary filed out, sniffling in the cold but too loyal to leave him on his own. They stomped their feet and shuffled from one side to the other, talking quietly about who would let the ambulances through, but didn't suggest they leave. Every one of them were respectfully quiet.

"Fifteen years," whispered August. "Fifteen years of work, of sweat, of sleepless nights, for this. You raise your children, you teach them about life, but you never want to have to teach them about death. Everything is supposed to be sunshine and happy things. Then..._this_."

He covered his eyes with one hand and cried.

Sergeant Wallace turned and marched a few steps away, obviously distressed, and froze. "Did you hear that?" he asked faintly.

The others shook their heads, but Wallace paced around the dingy shed with a look of fierce concentration on his thin pointed face. With everyone quieter, it was easier in the chill air to hear the wooden thud of something heavy falling beneath them.

August lifted his head and stepped around to see what Wallace was looking at: a pile of moldy tarps snug against the wall of the shed, too carefully arranged for something so disgusting. They lifted away the tarps just before another crash and a blood-curdling scream tore the air.

"_Help! Oh, god, help me!_"

Together August and Wallace pried open the old storm cellar doors, ignoring the splinters in their hands when they saw clear, fresh scratch marks in the wood, and then Sally herself - still in her bloodstained and muddy gown - lying curled at the bottom of the steps. They rushed down the steps without telling the rest of the team what they had found, though the men seemed to realize what was going on within moments. Two of them ran to meet the ambulances while August gently pulled Sally's head into his lap and Wallace assessed her injuries.

Within minutes paramedics were picking their way down the rickety stairs with a stretcher and sterile equipment to treat any immediate dangers. Before August could blink twice they had whisked Sally away, leaving him with Sergeant Wallace and blood on his clothes.

"Sir?"

"Mm?"

"Perhaps you should call your wife?"

He was stunned, completely blown away, and nodded before pulling out his mobile yet again. "Martha, darling, Sally's coming home." 

* * *

><p>It would be a long recovery, that much was certain. Sally woke up in hospital fourteen hours after emergency surgery, dealing not only with the two-inch-deep puncture wounds from the rake but heavy internal bleeding and several broken and fractured bones. The doctors said it was a work of pure magic that Sally had been able to move at all, let alone enough to knock things over and gain the attention necessary to be found. She must have been incredibly strong, they said.<p>

Martha and the boys almost made it to the hospital before Sally did, and had to be wrestled out of her recovery room by a ferociously well-meaning male nurse from Sweden. "This girl, she need rest now," he scolded them. "I know, I know, you are so happy! But no good to wake her before she is ready, ja?"

Two hours after her surgery, Sally started fighting her breathing tube, which was a good sign, but she slept for another twelve hours after that. It might have been her first sleep in a proper bed for fifteen years.

The prince showed up around four, and sat with her family until she woke up with a bunch of wilted flowers clutched in his clammy fist. Then he left the flowers with Martha and vanished into a swarm of paparazzi, pale and upset as he ventured down a few corridors to see his bodyguard, who had thankfully lived after his terrifying injury. That young soldier, too, would have a great deal of recovery time ahead of him, and likely permanent nerve damage in the left shoulder.

Sally was naturally very confused when she at last woke up, groggy and giddy from pain medication as the nurses checked her over. They checked her reaction time, her reflexes, if she remembered what year it was, and tentatively confirmed that she had no brain damage to speak of. So far, out of the woods. Even when she was still having trouble speaking her mouth was forming words, silent cries, the names of her family. They were at last let in only to keep the girl from dive-bombing out of bed to find them herself.

Tears rolled quietly from Simon's eyes as he stared determinedly at the floor, listening to his mother's not-so-delicate sobs. Even though he was gaining a sister back, it felt somehow like a twisted sort of loss. It was like there was a hole being ripped into his insides; a gaping canyon filled with love so strong it hurt. He still remembered Sally's...well, her funeral. How he'd been ten years old and far too old to cry as much as he had. Then twelve-year-old Scott had leaned over, squeezed his hand, and started their fifteen-year-long inside joke.

"Worse than Sally in a strop," Scott muttered across two feet of hospital tile floor, and Simon choked on simultaneous laughter and crying. He took the tremulous two steps to his sister's bedside and grasped her hand, watching her smile up at him through medicated tears.

"Missed you, Sal."

Under cuts and bruises she whispered back, "_You too_."

"I'm s-sorry I said such awful things to you."

"_S'okay_."

"I love you."

"_You too._"

He had to push his glasses high up onto his forehead to rub the tears from his eyes as he knelt by Sally's bed, and held her hand with no intention of letting go ever, ever again. 

* * *

><p>Over the course of the next week and a half Sally was endowed with more attention than she ever would have dreamt of in all her years of planning elaborate escapes from Papa Jeff. Radio, television, newspaper, and magazine people were constantly knocking on the door to her parents' house or ringing the phone. The only thing that would stop them was intervention by not only her DCI of a father but the royal family as well.<p>

The royal intervention came in the form of Prince Gregory absconding his throne, drawing in screaming hordes of media attention from all around the world, let alone London. He gave a press conference that was brief only because he was rubbish at public speaking and kept stammering his way through the announcement. The shock of his people was great, but not as great as when he appointed a long-distant cousin, Mycroft Holmes, as his replacement.

"He will rule you just as well and just as honestly as my father does to this day," promised Greg. "He is brave, honest, and more than capable of great responsibility. Not only that, but he is supported by myself, my father, and his partner. I know he will not let you down in the way I fear I may if I hold my position of power. I would not be happy as your king. I love my people and my country, but I don't want to be a man who stands on high and watches from afar. I want to be among you, a civilian, a civil servant. I want to serve you in the only way I feel I can - through police work. I hope I make my father and my country proud. Thank you." The cameras flashed, the once-prince nodded somberly, and was off to start over again.

Meanwhile, in a posh hospital on the other side of London, John Watson watched his telly and laughed until it made his shoulder hurt too much to do anything but cry. He would never have a military career, and the chances of a successful medical career had been greatly slimmed by Jefferson Hope and that blasted iron candlestick, and it was enough to make any man crumble. But every time he started to let the blackness around his mind encroach an alarmingly annoying, skinny, arrogant young man swooped into the room from the drug rehabilitation wing and bickered with him. He had his eye on a little place on Baker Street, near Scotland Yard, and would John like to be his flatmate now that he was no longer needed to serve the royal family? It wasn't a war zone, but Sherlock vowed to make life just as interesting as one. How could John do anything but accept?

Two months after she was freed from Papa Jeff's house for good, Sally left her bedroom door open and was able to catch one of Greg's elusive visits before he left. She careened out of her desk chair and down the stairs as the front door gently closed, rushing past her parents and into the front garden to see a motorbike idling in the drive. "Just where are you going?" she called archly at the young man striding toward the death machine.

Greg spun around with a helmet dangling from his hands, looking sheepish. "I..."

"You've been coming 'round at least twice a week since I got here and never once stopped to say hello to me," she continued with hands on her hips.

"Yeah, I..." he muttered, biting his lip. "I guess I just."

"Just what? You think you can just forget about me? After everything that happened, after everything you said? The paparazzi aren't interested in either of us anymore now that Mycroft's in the palace; what's there to be scared of?"

With a strained sigh, Greg dropped his helmet and shrugged. "That stunt I pulled with the jackets almost got you and John killed," he finally admitted. "Didn't think you'd want-"

"Well maybe I can make my own decisions," she cut him off. "John's fine; I saw him yesterday. I'm fine too."

"Are you?" asked Greg with an arched eyebrow.

"I-" She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes for a moment.

Yes, sometimes it was still hard, especially after Alice's interrogation confirmed that Sally had lost a year of her life drugged in the cellar of Jeff Hope's house. The memories came back slowly from that time, only minutes of clarity between being stuck with needles, and yes, sometimes she woke up in the night thinking she was still trapped down there and crying for her mama. Yes, sometimes shadows or raised voices or jerky movements still made her cringe or outright yelp. Yes, sometimes a turn of phrase overheard on the telly made her bawl like an inconsolable infant. And yes, 'sometimes' meant 'at least once every two days.'

She opened her eyes and smiled. "It's getting better every day. Now are you going to show me how to ride that thing or not?"

There were no sunsets to blaze off into, as it was the middle of a winter afternoon and very cloudy. There was no dramatic score to play them off as the lights faded to black. There was no hopeful polaroid still-frame to burn into the corneas as a memory of that afternoon. None of them needed it. As princes and PAs curled in their His&Her dressing gowns before the fire, as a little flat on Baker Street became a battlefield, as a motorbike helmet fit better than a crown, through the days of police training, all through the force and the danger and drama that they could never quite escape from, those memories were lived and passed on like secondhand clothes or love-worn dolls to those who came after. And though how they lived was not always happy, as life is meant to be, it was, against all odds, forever.

The end.


End file.
